


entr'actes

by Brick (themikeymonster)



Series: how bright the fires inside us [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/Brick
Summary: intermissions from chroma diamonds





	1. they eat their own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shioya Tadamasa talks things over with Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, regarding his wife, his son, and what will become necessary from here on out

* * *

they eat their own

* * *

Tsuyoshi has the decency to wait until his face is burning red and Tadamasa has his face braced up against his hand before he says, "Sawada." Flat and measured, like a man might when he takes a mission he knows is suicide.

Tadamasa can't blame him, having seen for himself the way Tsuyoshi's son had set his feet against his father. Of course, even without that: little Takeshi is in monsoon. As a Rain himself, Tadamas knows there's no stopping that.

"Well, it's not like Namimori is over pouring in little Skies," he points out reasonably.

Tsuyoshi gives him a look like a man watching his own toddler son being taken hostage. Maybe that's how he feels about it, Tadamasa wouldn't know. He only has Kyoko and Ryohei, and no one had ever been stupid enough to come for Sasagawa Naoko's children, not after she had given them her own name.

"I'm surprised at you, Tadamasa," he says, every inch the assassin that would reach over the table and cut a long and hungry line through Tadamasa's belly, and then sit there and finish his drink.

Tadamasa just smiles. He's impressed enough with Tsuyoshi's will to kill, but Tsuyoshi didn't get as far as he did by being someone who acts on his emotions. If he needed to, he'd kill Tadamasa without hesitation - it just wouldn't be rational in this case.

He didn't intentionally install himself as an important person in Tsuyoshi's life, but there's only so far that a normal person can understand what it's like for someone with the ability called 'Flames.' And little Takeshi will need Tadamasa's coaching sooner rather than later. Maybe he hasn't shown his will yet, but his sway is all over his home and he'd only too happily poured them all over that Sky of his.

"Don't be surprised at me," Tadamasa says mildly, picking up his cup. "You know how I feel about Sawada. The fact that I'm investing in that kid's future should tell you enough."

He snorts. "The fact that you are is the only reason I haven't cut his head from his shoulders."

Frowning, he shoots back: "Don't be cute about it. That would be a neat way of making enemies out of the people you're trying to protect."

It's nothing a drunk father worried for his son wants to hear, and it's twice as hard for Tsuyoshi. He's an amazing man - the One who has Doused a Thousand Flames - but he's also only a man, sitting in his living room and glaring into his cup. It's easy to tell the usual thought has come back to him: that he misses his wife. That he wishes she were here to help him with the son he understands less and less as the years stretch on.

"With our resources, there isn't much we can do," Tadamasa points out, not entirely unsympathetic after all. "I'm trying control the whole fallout a little bit, but that only goes so far when that small brat is being sly about it."

Not that he can really blame the brat about that. It doesn't surprise Tamadasa that Sawada doesn't believe in tradition after what he did - he fought Vongola Nono tooth and nail over that. There's no one in all of Namimori that the small brat seems to trust - not even his mother - as secretive as he's been about choosing his guardians. Every instinct in his body must be screaming at him to keep a low profile.

Even so, he's carrying that out to a disturbing degree that makes Tadamasa's skin crawl. Skies aren't meant to be so unobtrusive - like something beaten and backed into a corner so that it cowers and slinks to avoid notice. Tadamasa's first indication that he's in the presence of an active Sky shouldn't have been hearing the kid's family name.

(Maybe he's inverted, Tadamasa had kept thinking as he shoved and shoved and shoved and never could get a single wisp of will out of him. What a terrifying thought: Iemitsu is powerful as it is. If his son favors his purity of flame, then-

But: No. Now he's seen the small brat with those chosen guardians, and how he acts around them, the problem isn't that his flame has twisted around and turned on its source to devour his spirit. There's something badly wrong with Sawada Tsunayoshi, and Tadamasa won't be able to rest easy until he gets to the root of the problem, but no one will have to put down a rabid Sky after all. What a relief.

Killing Skies is always a pain in the ass.)

"I'm not sure I'm any happier with it being Sawada," Tsuyoshi says grumpily.

"Well, there's no helping that," Tadamasa says evenly. "He screwed up his first pick, and thankfully gave up after that. I don't want to go into detail about what can go wrong if a Sky turns a guardian down gracelessly." Other than to say: they wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation. "I told you his flames are too strong to be patient about things. That kid was going to leave the nest the moment he graduated in search of a Sky, and with that purity? He would have been in high demand. You know what it's like in our circles to be in high demand."

The son of Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, the One who Doused a Thousand Flames, but with flames of his own? And the instincts that someone with his pedigree couldn't help but have. The discipline. The drive. He would have been turned into some kind of monster.

He could still turn into some kind of monster with the Sky he's got, but these days, Tadamasa finds it hard to begrudge that. Even if no scrap of his will has shown itself, he's a Sky, after all. Even Tadamasa who despises the father and mistrusts the flame and distrusts the name has become sympathetic to his cause. What a terrifying, two-faced brat.

Tadamasa has seen plenty of Skies with raging Storm temperaments, though a soothing Rain isn't strange at all. He's seen them so protective they might as well snap and crack with green flames instead. Those who favor the harsh clarity of the sun.

This is the first Sky with a Mist temperament that he's met. It's plenty unsettling: like seeing shapes in the dark but in reverse - what seems to be a harmless coat hung in the corner turns out to have claws and teeth after all.

"After Mayu, I thought I'd be happy for Takeshi to find someone like that," Tsuyoshi says at last.

"Why would you?" Tadamasa asks dryly. "You weren't happy about Mayu. There's no way you'd be happy for little Takeshi, either."

"Mayu and I were married," he refutes without emotion. "I should be happy for my son to have discovered someone like that before he makes the same mistakes his parents did."

It's a bit of a relief that even if he doesn't feel it honestly in this moment, he's at least doing his best to keep his attitude correct. Ever since having a son, Tsuyoshi has always tried to do right by him, no matter what - even when he doesn't understand him. Perhaps losing Mayu over his own stubbornness really taught him an important lesson.

After all, anyone can see the level to which little Takeshi adores his Sky. Why shouldn't he? Tadamasa has seen for himself that the small, two-faced brat has the same incredible level of instinct which made Vongola's CEDEF into a force to be reckoned with. It elevates to a whole other level around his guardians - anyone should be pleased to be so doted upon.

And for little Takeshi, who is a blade so sharp and fine that his flat side mirrors and his edge could be used for the most delicate of tasks? How wonderful to be seen as a person to be kind to and not a tool to be wielded however the strongest hand pleases.

"In that case, you might as well treat that small brat as your future son-in-law," Tadamasa says mildly, not looking at Tsuyoshi. "He's not so stupid as to realize that he's not welcomed by you, but he won't want to cause friction in little Takeshi's home. If you want to keep your son close, at least get to know mini-Sawada. Try seeing what your son does, for once, instead of expecting him to come to see things your way."

Tsuyoshi slams the cup in his hand down on the table with a loud thunk. The cup doesn't shatter though, so he's just being sulky instead of throwing a true temper tantrum about it. "No offense," he says, "but that nephew of yours sure screwed things up."

"None taken," he says easily. "He got that from his worthless father, after all. Imagine thinking you can pull one over aneki."

"Naoko-chan doesn't really have a reputation as a black widow," he points out.

Sometimes Tadamasa wished she did. Maybe it would have saved him a lot of grief in the long run, since there probably wouldn't be a small, two-faced brat to be bothering him now. She'd come close, a few years before that, when Sawada had made the mistake of thinking they were some kind of package deal. It's not easy turning against your Sky, but if anyone could do it, Naoko could have.

Actually, thinking of it that way… doesn't that small brat share a lot of his traits with his blood sibling, unexpectedly?

"That kid of yours sure has a type," Tadamasa muses. There was no way for Takeshi's first choice to have worked out since there's no way that kid could have been soothed by him, but - well, wasn't Sawada Tsunayoshi the next best thing?

"Two-faced brats?" Tsuyoshi asks.

Tadamasa gives him a mild look in rebuke, to remind him just who he's talking about. As if Tsuyoshi has room to speak, what with the twisted personality his own kid has. "You can't argue with little Takeshi over this, Tsuyoshi," he says. "This isn't like forbidding him to hang out with certain friends, or those baseball geeks of his who can't even see what's in front of their own faces. If that small brat can prefer to use his own inactive mother as a crutch over a fully active guardian like Ryohei, then there's no way he'll settle for some other Rain after petitioning you the way he did-"

"You call that a petition-"

"From _that_ brat?" Tadamasa says sharply, "who refuses to show preference about anything and lets anyone walk over him? To a man he only just met?"

It's pitiful as a petition, that's true - unworthy of someone of Yamamoto Takeshi's caliber and unworthy of a Sky with ties to Vongola. But given that he can count the number of times Sawada has even met that small brat with one hand and still hold a cup with it, and his lack of chaperone? Given that there is a fair chance he's as aware of his circumstances as his own mother, and has been depending on instinct and implications alone? The fact that he tried at all is indicative enough.

Just as is the way little Takeshi had set his feet against his father: the pouring Rain that just as easily washes away buildings and drowns the unwary when it's unrelenting enough.

The sooner that Tsuyoshi can accept that, the better for everyone involved. Tadamasa still has a trip to make to the Miura household to find out if Hideki and his wife have found their daughter out. He's not looking forward to it.

"You really are championing that kid," Tsuyoshi says after a moment, watching him with the sharp eyes of his bloodied past.

"He's getting along with my aneki's kids," he says. "Of course I am. It's self preservation to throw my lot in on him early and earn his regard. If he comes to trust me, then me and my own will be sheltered, too."

Tsuyoshi grunts, drinking again. After a moment, he says, sourly, "a son-in-law, huh."

"Well, if you're lucky, some day you'll get a cute daughter-in-law, too," Tadamasa says. "Paying in on a new Sky isn't a bad idea. That Sky will relentlessly protect your son and any children he has if it kills him."

He almost hates to mislead Tsuyoshi this way, but - the man doesn't know the finer politics of the way these who have such incredible wills that they can manifest. Tadamasa is throwing his lot in on Sawada Tsunayoshi - but it won't exactly cost him a lot if Tsunayoshi fails, either. After all, no one in _his_ family is at risk here.

And a Sky like that small brat, which dotes on his guardians that way, certainly _would_ go so far to protect little Takeshi and any wife or children he has. The only problem will be keeping that Sky alive long enough that he can back up those feelings of his with his fists.

Because if any of the Families back in Italy learn about an unaffiliated Sky in Namimori-

Tadamasa pours himself another drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually due a re-write, but I wanted to get everything posted before I left for work since I added so many intermissions?? So um. It'll be rewritten in the future...  
> \-----  
> being 'in monsoon' has no special meaning other than Takeshi thinking with his flames instead of his head.
> 
> Saying someone has a "[flame type] temperament" is about as accurate as judging their personality by blood type, date of birth, or mbti (which has been shown to fluctuate due to mood). Shioya would say, for example, that Timoteo is a Rain temperament, Xanxas a Cloud (despite Wrath flames), Dino a Sun, and canon!Tsuna would be a Lightning. Again, it means basically nothing and is based off personal feelings and interpretations.


	2. HOWTOREAD : The White Orchid Protocol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Byakuran scenes lined up in order with a quick exposition about the things I had hoped to impart with them!

**HOW TO READ: The White Orchid Protocol**

this isn't a chapter so much as it is me lining up all the Byakuran scenes in Chroma Diamonds, which tell an important part of the story that we're about to launch into. Because it takes me forever to update, and I think most of you guys have been ignoring this part of the story, consider this a recap before we launch into the main arc of Chroma Diamonds

It comes with chapters included, so you can remind yourself of the context~!

* * *

**Chapter 5: Over His Dead Body**

* * *

Tsunayoshi picks up another cookie from the dish. As he's fitting it into his mouth, he blinks.

There's a boy at the table. It's a bit odd, like when Tsunayoshi had sat up to see Hibari crouched over his bed, tonfa buried in his pillow. The idea that there's something very wrong with the whole picture, and yet there's no immediately alarm or terror.

The boy blinks back at him. He has a whimsical kind of smile, and a spill of white hair like someone's tipped a carton of milk over his head. It tangles, frayed and jagged. Tsunayoshi somehow expects his strangely colored eyes to be violent and bright, but they're pale and misty and strangely sharp.

Tsunayoshi blinks.

"Is this where it started?" the boy asks him.

The cookie is getting soggy in Tsunayoshi's mouth. "Sorry," he says, garbled and muffled around it, "who?"

Tsunayoshi blinks a third time. Nana's excited voice echoes down the hallway, meaningless this and that which might just be her talking over whatever objections Haru's mother might be making. Haru must have given over her house number at some point… or otherwise Tsunayoshi's mother is inviting herself over to a stranger's house who merely shares a last name.

He's alone in the kitchen, staring a bit blankly at a beam of sunlight coming in the window just so.

* * *

**Chapter 6 : A Good Friend**

* * *

And Tsunayoshi will die if he's left alone, he realizes that now. Ahh. Ahh. He's got to do everything there is to stop that from happening.

"You must have felt it start to happen," the boy with misty eyes and milk-spill hair says pleasantly, a little too young and too high to be silk-smooth. He blinks misty eyes at Tsunayoshi; little mothwing flutters over cheeks as childhood plump as Tsunayoshi's own.

"They stuffed you into a little box and thought it would all turn out fine. But people like us - well, if you keep us from fulfilling our purposes, then it all eventually turns inwards, and then it begins to twist. It twists and then it ties itself all up into a knot. It twists and knots until it turns upside-down and inside-out.

That thing's called 'inversion,' you know."

'Inversion' sounds like an ugly, desperate, sad thing, Tsunayoshi thinks, blinking back at him. People aren't like little bonsai trees that hold no grudge for being shoved into tight little spaces and being forced to grow in a certain way.

Of course a person would hold some serious kind of grudge over that, but the boy's expression is complicated when he says it. A little bitter. Almost yearning. "If I at least inverted," he says, "I could have taken my revenge for what she's done."

But what kind of thing would he have become in doing that, Tsunayoshi wonders. He's so pale and distorted as it is that if this isn't inversion, then the real thing must be terrifying. He wants to say that he's glad he hasn't, but then the boy looks at him.

"Even without anyone helping you, you managed to save yourself anyway. Tsu-kun, your instincts are quite terrifying, you know?" He smiles, thin and sharp. Like clippers, wet with sap. "Isn't that great? The worlds were you don't - well. Everything considered, I guess having to live in this world isn't too bad, if it has this you in it, too."

He looks at Tsunayoshi with that twisted little whimsical smile, with pale eyes that are sharp enough to slice a person open on them, and a long spill of hair like it's been endlessly growing for years, and years, and years without care. Far from the attentive over trimming of a bonsai tree, Tsunayoshi thinks, and yet-

After a moment, Tsunayoshi wonders what he's doing, standing in the middle of the street and staring at a whole lot of nothing while Nana is walking away, headed back home.

* * *

**Chapter 8 : A Chewtoy Extraordinaire**

* * *

Maybe he feels a lot less like his hands are wet and sticky - or may become that way through some unfortunate circumstances beyond his control.

Sometimes he still smells iron, though.

("Say, _Nayo-tan:_ living in a world this noisy seems nice," the boy with milk-spill hair says, hands clasped behind his back, his dangerous misty eyes shielded by the falling tangle of his hair. There are so many awful sharp edges for something so gentle. Cat's paws, and cat's nuzzling, though there are long, sharp claws and teeth to catch him with the moment he tries to escape. "Won't you let me live here, too?"

But isn't that the kind of thing a person chooses for themselves, Tsunayoshi wonders; by intentionally softening all those awful parts of them and becoming someone that others won't want to leave? At least, it seems that way to him.

Isn't it true?

The soft smile that shows through lanks of white hair is terrible.)

-0-

That ember in his chest continues to smolder, and the world is so very flammable.

* * *

**Chapter 9 : for almost twenty years now**

* * *

In order to have the strength to make sure neither Haru nor Nana have reason to be sad, Tsunayoshi can do anything - become anything. He'll shake that admirable resolve in anyone's face to achieve his ends.

"That's almost certainly not a 'normal' thing to think," Tsunayoshi muses into the empty bathroom.

"Well, you didn't properly think of it that way the first time, did you?"

There's a boy with milkspill hair sitting on the edge of the tub, his feet plunged into the steaming water and his pants rolled up to his knees. He leans forward. The steam and the water pull at the lanks of hair.

"Aren't you being weirdly introspective for a thirteen year old?"

Tsunayoshi blinks.

"Or maybe I'm being impatient," he muses, smiling down at Tsunayoshi with such sharp edges to his teeth. "It's not really my place, after all. That cute kid said it would happen soon, but they haven't even gotten anything ready yet. Say - Nayo-tan."

_Danger._

Long fingers splay out across Tsunayoshi's naked chest, even more pale still than his own sun-starved skin. Tsunayoshi inhales. The fragile bones of his ribcage arch up, straining against tendon and flesh.

Eyes like faded flowers, pressed between pages in a book and forgotten for years, and years, and years - those eyes hold no grudge or malice against Tsunayoshi as the boy says, "won't you show them how to burn?"

And then Tsunayoshi is plunged underwater.

-0-

That dangerous spark inside of him that burned him alive and hollowed him out - doesn't so much as char.

-0-

Tsunayoshi sits upright in the tub, steam curling in the air. His hair is dry.

* * *

**Chapter 12 : the gunpowder plot**

* * *

If he has no idea what lays out there, then how is he expected to look after his household to the best of his ability?

Although what out there could possibly have any interest in a group of random kids from Namimori is a question he hasn't entirely asked in the first place.

Regardless, he knows his duties.

One - two - three - the fingers that count over his ribs tip up along the breastbone. "How terrifying," the boy with milkspill hair murmurs, sitting beside him on the tram, his overgrown fingernails thumping painfully against the broad bone in counterpart to Tsunayoshi's beating heart. "How old were you then? And you were already like this."

The boy sighs, pulling away and falling against the seat in a slump. "We could have been peers, you know," he laments, eyelashes sharp white wedges over his cheeks, eyes closed. "Why is it that only the worlds where things are the worst for me do things turn out fine?"

It's bad enough to suffer and not really know the extent of it, Tsunayoshi thinks: but to suffer and to be able to compare that to a different existence? Tsunayoshi used to be happier, he thinks, before he understood the extent of how he was different from other people. He's gained a lot, that's true, but that only means that he's so incredibly aware of what he stands to lose - of what 'capable of anything' _means._

It's not a good thing.

The boy looks at Tsunayoshi then, his pale eyes glittering like broken mirrors, dangerous and mad. "Say, Nayo-tan. Some others might think it's fine for one to suffer for the good of many, but _doesn't that sound frustrating for the person who's suffering?_ "

Something _stretches._ More than something: everything stretches. The tram stretches. The scenery outside. The distance between him and the boy with shattered memories of forgotten flowers in his eyes. It stretches and the boy stretches and _Tsunayoshi_ stretches, too.

It isn't that Tsunayoshi's body changes into something strange and unfamiliar, but he knows that how his not-body rests on the not-seat isn't the same as it was just before. Still comfortable, natural, relaxed, but _different._ A kind of power curls through his limbs, a certain awareness, a certain conviction. He doesn't feel confused or disoriented by the situation at all. It's crystal clear. Everything is in its place and as it should be.

The boy that sits next to him -

The young man that sits next to him with hair too long that hasn't seen a brush, with nails too long since their last clipping: he's the furthest thing from a bonsai cut just _so_ and expected to grow a certain way. He's been forgotten and he's _wasting,_ his cheeks not childhood plump but lean and growing hollow, the sharp angles of his skeleton poking corners out of his skin with sharp, mad, haunted eyes-

(a thing left so long alone in the dark that it begins to think: _if only i had the power to destroy all things good i was never allowed-_ )

Tsunayoshi, with perfect calm, says: "In the first place, who was the person who said that we weren't peers? That's not something you get to decide on your own without consulting me first. And as for that other matter-"

It _stretches._ The young man beside him sits with wide eyes and washed out skin that pales, almost blue. Madness has become terror in his eyes, though Tsunayoshi isn't sure what about him could possibly be as worrisome as that. The world and all things in it continue to stretch around them, and they stretch with it. In the end, it's easy to breach the distance and grab one of the hands that have been reaching out for him all this time, grasping desperately like a person drowning.

It isn't a tight grip. Tsunayoshi doesn't squeeze, but his hold is firm all the same. The young man next to him already has pinpricks for pupils, his heart already beating so fast that his thin, papery skin flutters with it. It's a bit like catching a butterfly between cupped hands, trying so hard not to scrape or bend a fragile wing by accident. It would be a terribly easy thing to do, especially for someone like Tsunayoshi whose hands are only good for things that leave them sticky and numb.

"A system that puts undue weight on someone for others' benefit is intolerable," he says to his peer with absolute conviction. "I'll crush something like that beneath my heel even if I have to die doing it."

Eyes wide and teeth bared with an awful, animalistic kind of fear, the young man with impossibly lengths of tangled white hair recoils, and with him: the world.

The reality that has been stretching to the edge of its endurance around Tsunayoshi - rebounds.

* * *

**Chapter 14 : a house on the cliffside**

* * *

Shoichi sure is spoiled, having his own desktop computer, is Tsunayoshi's first thought - but the room is pitch black other than the white glare of the screen, so he should be excused for such a useless first impression. The form with tousled hair sitting in front of the keyboard is likely to be Shoichi, his fingers moving so quickly across the keyboard that it's amazing he doesn't get something wrong. It's so confident and decisive - if only Tsunayoshi himself could ever be half as certain as that.

There's a boy sitting on the table next to the computer, his head laid on arms folded over the monitor, his overlong hair stretched over everything like cobwebs. His face is cast in eerie shadows by the odd position he's in relative to the only source of light, but it makes his eyelashes glitter like snowflakes on the hills of round baby fat cheeks, and he doesn't look up from staring at the hidden face sitting in the chair before him. Those eyes in this darkness should probably be shining, but they're faded, and strained, and dull.

Under the edge of the hospital gown he's been wearing all this time, his bare feet dangle: knobbly ankles, and delicate bones like glass.

Tsunayoshi blinks.

* * *

**Chapter 15 : taking time running in place**

* * *

There's so much sulfur and smoke filling his chest that he should be choking on it, except that to something like him, breathing poison and ash comes naturally; the wildly flaring embers that are scattering like a whirlwind inside his lungs and heart and head don't even hurt him, even as he chars and hallows and those embers ignite and devour and consume.

The painful tingling in his palms should be so lucky as to become numbed -

"Don't you have something like this backwards?" the boy with milkspill hair wonders, standing on the side of Tsunayoshi opposite Hana. "Again and again and again. Someone like us should be special, but you always seem to think that care should go in the opposite direction. It's enough to make me wish for a will less self-serving, you know."

Tsunayoshi should have realized before that no one realizes that he's here - the boy with long tangles of uncared for hair. There is sulfur and ash in Tsunayoshi's lungs and embers burning through his heart, and he looks at the young teenager standing next to him in a hospital gown and bare feet and bandages wrapped around thin wrists with so many needle marks in them. For once, the boy seems to see Tsunayoshi looking back at him, and he smiles something broken and sharp.

"Ah - I guess Nayo-tan can't help it, though," he sighs. "That's just the way people like us are. We collect people around us, and then? Well, then we fear to lose the things we have, don't we? And when it comes to losing things-"

His pale eyes lose focus for a moment, flittering back and forth, reading distant text: billboards and road signs and maps.

"Well, we have to protect them, you see," he says, and looks sharply at Tsunayoshi. "Do you see?"

It's a foolish thing to ask someone whose gut instinct upon watching some guy knock his mother to the ground was the immediate murder of that man and his cohorts, isn't it? And just now, what was he thinking in the first place? Crippling Hana and then? What he was planning to do in retribution. By this time, Tsunayoshi well understands the art of protecting things. It's protecting them and keeping them at the same time that's the difficult part - it's acting on their behalf without overstepping and making them feel pressured. Terrorizing their foes without terrorizing _them._

If they can't speak their hearts plainly to him without fear, then they're not being protected, are they?

The laugh that breaks out of the boy standings next to him sounds like things falling off shelves in a distant basement. "People raised into it understand it less well than you do," he says, sharp and snapping and brittle. "There just isn't any competition to that blessed bloodline of yours - ah. Although it's so misfortunate, isn't it? Or otherwise that blessed bloodline would cherish you instead of leaving you abandoned to be picked up by any hand that is kind enough." He grins. His teeth are sharp and white and strangely jagged, as if they've never been used to bite down on anything even once.

"And what about you?" Tsunayoshi asks him, and they aren't boys standing in a gym together anymore, are they? "What about your bloodline?"

What Tsunayoshi is truly asking must be transparent to the young man standing next to him, because there's something like a terrible fury on his face, and also a great loneliness, and also -

But that child has run away again, as usual. It must be difficult to visit, in various ways, Tsunayoshi thinks, and then he twitches and blinks as his surroundings come back into clarity.

_( … text removed … )_

Although she hadn't noticed his lapse of attention before he noticed Kyoya. Somehow, he expects that, as well. It's not surprising at all. Why would she have? After all, she isn't -

-0-

No, the problem doesn't lay with Hana at all, does it?

* * *

**Chapter 19 : bone and blood**

* * *

The boy with milkspill hair laughs, and laughs, and laughs, sharp and painful. Those thin arms, nothing but skin and bones and painful scars where needles were pushed in again and again and again and left there for countless days or weeks, twine over Tsunayoshi's narrow shoulders so that the spider lengths of his finger tips pitter patter over the breastbone.

"There it is. That's it," he says, hateful and gleeful all at once. "That's the power that she's seeking from you. I wonder how many different worlds also got this far but it just wasn't enough?"

"Shouldn't you of everyone know that best?" Tsunayoshi wonders.

"Even I'm not omniscient," he huffs. Though his face presses in where hair meets neck, there is no breath to prickle Tsunayoshi's skin. After all, that kid isn't here at all, is he? "Certainly, it's my mind alone that's capable of grasping the nature of reality without snapping entirely, but - it's not as though I've been allowed to look around as I please." The words drip and drop, viscous and drenched in bitter, spoiled honey.

Something like that could easily poison a person who listened to it for very long. And yet it doesn't trouble Tsunayoshi in the least. His heart is made of fire. There's not enough bitterness and bile inside this child to douse that flame out or sway it.

"With this," the boy says, the uncut points of his fingernails biting into the shirt, slotting into the hollows between Tsunayoshi's ribs, "we might just be the one that makes it. Survive, Nayo. If you have to cling to life with broken nailbeds and chipped teeth, _survive._ If you can, you'll be saved, and maybe you can meet that child. It'll be plenty amusing, I think! How would you like to make this reality one in a hundred billion? Hmm?"

Tsunayoshi is left alone in an empty hallway with one hand grasped to his chest, feeling the hollow thump of his sick heart beneath charred ribs. Although smothered, the inferno is only banked. It won't can't ever become embers again. He feels a little like he'll really choke on the poisonous ash, but - somehow, he thinks he'll survive somehow no matter what.

He doesn't have a choice. There are people who depend on him, after all.

* * *

**Chapter 20 : those whom the sun sets upon**

* * *

It hurts far too much to even scream. It paralyzes him. The world turns white.

_Survive,_ he remembers the man with endless long lank locks of hair and thin limbs and needle tracks on his arms saying. And so he tries. He tries. His very soul is being ripped from his body. The world keeps stretching.

Tsunayoshi sees himself and Nana leaving. He sees Kyoya's mother, Nuo, saying that she'll be going away with that family member, since she's become a hostage against Kyoya and can no longer protect him. _I'll leave him to your care,_ she says, ignoring Tsunayoshi's bleeding lip and the smudge of blood at the corner of Kyoya's mouth. He sees returning to the hospital several times. He meets a girl there with shy eyes, who is always carrying a bag. She's sad and her eyes see too much and Tsunayoshi would like to keep her around, but he introduces her to his sister instead as to not be unkind. The situation with the Hibari family gets worse. _Ikumi_ gets worse. His hands. They become sticky all the time, then.

Tsunayoshi can't really focus on all these things as the world _stretches_ and he stretches with it and then it begins to fracture, to change into-

"Bare with it," the boy with milkspill hair says urgently, but he's not a boy, he's just a few years shy of being an adult for how awful he looks. His eyes are frenzied. "Is your will this weak? If you're going to die anyway, then _live through this, at least!_ "

But he's being scooped out or torn into a million tiny pieces, or forcibly squashed into a pancake - it's like all of those things, but happening all at once, and the some terrible weakness is coming in over him. Something vital is being drained out while all of everything else is happening.

"Don't you want to meet that child?" that guy demands, clawing at Tsunayoshi, but somehow not being able to touch him. "Hey! Don't be ungrateful! Yuni and I picked him out especially for you to make up for everything! Hey! Tsunayoshi! Hey! _Wake up!_ "

But as stressed out as Tsunayoshi is about all this screeching while he's being ripped apart at the molecular level, he does precisely the opposite and blacks out.

-0-

"Hey," somebody says, or seems to say, but he has no ears to hear them with. "Hey! Are you okay?"

The blackness swims. It's interrupted by a gentle white glow next to him, and there, kneeling beside him is the guy with the milkspill hair and faded pressed flowers in his eyes. "Thank goodness," he sighs, wane and exhausted himself. "That makes the odds of us surviving this roughly eight hundred trillion to one. Thank goodness. What a relief." He seems to shake, and then he clutches at his face with thin, trembling hands that are barely skin over bone, and sobs.

"Hey? Come on," that someone says again, and then sighs, short and aggravated. "I can't just leave you here…"

The sobs hiccup and begin to turn into something else. It's some kind of horrible, jagged laugh. The hands clutching his face shift and begin to claw and pull at his hair and he throws back his head and laughs in harsh jags that sound ripped right out of him. It comes to a sudden, awful halt. The bones of his expanded chest seem to press out through the hospital gown. "Nayo-kyun," he drawls, still bent backwards from laughing, still with claws full of his own hair. "Zunetto is waiting for you."

"I'll take you with me, so just - wake up."

And since it's not that guy who has been laughing over his body this entire time, Tsunayoshi complies.

-0-

* * *

**HOW TO READ**

So, how do you read this? Well, first of all, it should be obvious that the interactions between Byakuran and Tsunayoshi occur outside the 'reality' of the main story. Although there are no visual breaks most of the time, Tsunayoshi's interactions there are clearly separate from his interactions with the main story.

Furthermore, as early as the second time that Byakuran visits Tsunayoshi, he mentions a 'she' that he wants to take revenge against. Throughout the visits, Tsunayoshi takes repeated note of how neglected that Byakuran looks - starting with his hair that's unmanageably long, though Canon Byakuran has short hair. He appears as a pre-teen sometimes and looks fairly okay, but when he appears as an older teenager, he's unhealthily thin, in a hospital gown with bare feet and needlemarks in his arms. His hair and his nails go uncut and ungroomed, his teeth look rough 'as if unused,' he looks parched. Tsunayoshi notes that he looks ignored and forgotten and uncared for, that he's been left alone in the dark.

Byakuran clings to Tsunayoshi before even discovering that Tsunayoshi has been aware of them all along.

Given that this is a story that deals with parallel universe - and indeed, chapter one talks extensively about the variations that can occur - you can expect some more plot regarding that.

Another thing to take note of is the way that Byakuran usually shows up when Tsunayoshi is having 'fraught' moments when his flames are at their hottest. As the climax approaches and Tsunayoshi is well within the grips of his Sky instincts, Byakuran says that 'this is the power she wanted.'

Up until the last few chapters, just whose side Byakuran might be on may have seemed ambiguous, but we also know that he begged Tsunayoshi to survive, and said that he and Yuni had tried to make up for the inconvenience to him, suggesting that Byakuran feels somewhat guilty for Tsunayoshi being involved, regardless of his behaviors otherwise. He's relieved when Tsunayoshi survives - whether for Tsunayoshi's sake, or for what that means for Byakuran and Yuni's fates is less clear. Byakuran seems to take it as a promising sign regarding their survival, though.

We also know that Tsunayoshi, who has 'terrifying instincts' to the point of picking a fight with Clan Hibari without fearing real retribution, is pretty sanguine about Byakuran and even approaches him with a firm but friendly manner. As a person generally unconcerned with the misfortunes of others unless he feels responsible for it, this suggests that either Tsunayoshi doesn't feel threatened by Byakuran despite the scary things he's done and said, or otherwise senses some kind of reason for it that he's curious about.

As for this unknown person asking Tsunayoshi to wake up, and then Tsunayoshi waking up? Well, that's the meat of the story that we're about to get into!


	3. context for Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nakamoto's Intermission, or the twisted Ballad of Kei's feelings regarding ones worthy of absolute devotion

* * *

 context for Kings

* * *

It's been a month since Sawada Tsunayoshi disappeared. It's only been a month. Isn't that a shock? It feels like it's been years. It feels like they're being haunted by his ghost somehow - reminded again and again and again no matter where they go: there's a hole in Namimori that used to be filled.

Kei isn't sure that he's surprised that it's so. Tsunayoshi always seems unassuming most of the time, at least until his sensibilities would get offended. It didn't happen often, granted, but any reasonably smart person would never need a reminder about it. Though it's worth noting that reasonably smart people rarely ever go far enough to offend Tsunayoshi in the first place, so naturally: they forget. They forget and Tsunayoshi is content enough with that, up until the second offense: that's when he becomes scary.

At least Kyoya has the decency to be upfront about being a terrifying person, Kei often thinks. Although it's not just Tsunayoshi, is it? It's everyone that he left behind - Kyoya, and Yamamoto, and Haru, too. They all seem pretty okay at first, at least until they decide not to forgive you. No wonder those two came to be at Tsunayoshi's side - Kei wonders where a straightforward person like Kyoya fits into it, except that he must. He does.

He did, until Tsunayoshi left. Kei can't imagine that something like that was done willingly, even before they had the evidence of it. He has seen what Tsunayoshi is willing to do for those people's sake, after all: there's no way that he would have easily disappeared at all. That's what makes it worse.

No one stops Kei as he entered the warehouse, already familiar with his face by this time. He stays out of the way, making his way to the overseer's office. It's loud, but this late in the day, most of the worst of their work is already done with. They're so efficient, but Kei figures it's not as if Kyoya would have accepted anything else.

Outside of the office, he runs into Sawada Nana, coming down the stairs. There are lines on her face that didn't used to be there - gray hairs, too, he thinks, despite the fact that she's a young mother and shouldn't have those naturally yet. She's tried covering up the bags under her eyes with makeup, but she can't cover up the redness from sleepless nights and crying.

"Oh, Kei-kun," she says, and smiles. The resemblance to Tsunayoshi is startling, although it shouldn't be. Surely it's like wondering what came first: the chicken or the egg? Does Tsunayoshi come by his smile naturally, or was it something he learned from her?

"Sawada-san," he greets politely, feeling his heart give an unsteady thump. It's always a bit scary dealing with Nana, in a completely different way than dealing with her son.

"I've just bought Kyoya-kun a lunch," she says. "He's been working so hard recently, I worry about him."

"Thanks for looking out for him," Kei says, still not completely sure how to respond to the fact his indomitable taichou seems to have no defenses against this woman. The Sawada family sure is terrifying, he thinks with a grimace. "I'll keep looking after him, too, so please don't worry about it."

Nana puts her hand to her face, looking at him fondly. "You sound like my Tsu-kun," she says warmly. "But you're still in school, Kei-kun. Don't overwork yourself, okay?"

Kei pauses, and though he obviously already knows the answer, maybe better than Nana even, he says, "Still no news of him?"

Nana's smile collapses, crumbling away. She draws in on herself, and seems to shrink, even as the corners of her mouth trembles and tries to pull upright. "Not yet," she says lightly. "But I know that if anyone can find him, it's my hubby."

 _Really,_ Kei thinks, hot and vicious suddenly. Adults are all useless to begin with, but _That Person_ has really proven himself to be beyond useless. It was five days before that man even showed up, and he barely stayed the night before leaving again. Is that really the kind of person Nana is being forced to rely upon? No wonder Tsunayoshi was always weirdly responsible for his own mother, even though Kei has spent all this time hating that part of him the most. Kei really hadn't understood his home situation at all. Not even that one time when _That Person_ had come around and Tsunayoshi had gone all weird and refused to go home. Kei hadn't been the only one to have curiously poked his nose into that matter.

Still, even Kei had assumed something more benign than the truth - no. Hoshino had spent five minutes watching that man, and sneered, disgusted, and had made excuses for Tsunayoshi's sake.

Anyone who can make Hoshino bend the slightest bit when it comes to Tsunayoshi… Kei should have realized immediately.

"I see," Kei says only, keeping his thoughts to himself. "Um. I know I'm only a high school student, Sawada-san, but - please. If there's anything I can do to help, even if it's just around the house, please give me a call, okay?"

Nana tilts her head and she smiles, and that's a smile like Tsunayoshi's too - the one he gives when he's thankful, but he will certainly never accept what was offered. Nana's more honest, though, because she says, gently, "Thank you, Kei-kun, but - if it's not Tsu-kun or Iemitsu, it's just no good, you know?"

"Regardless," he insists, because if at all possible, he wants Tsunayoshi to return without having to think poorly of all of them because they forgot to look after his mother in his absence. Although of course Kyoya and Haru and Yamamoto are all looking out after her, but - Kei wants to be relied upon as well.

Nana smiles once more, and then she takes her leave, nimbly navigating the floor without getting in the way of the men driving the forklifts. Kei watches out for her a moment longer before making his way up to taichou's office.

Kyoya never puts the blinds in his office down, standing at the glass window and staring down at the floor of the warehouse, his hands tucked into the small of his back. He must have seen anything, but he doesn't glance over when Kei steps inside. The bento that Nana made him, several layers high, sits on the corner of his desk.

"Hibari-taichou," Kei says, coming to attention, "there's still no news to report regarding that situation." Kyoya doesn't so much as twitch or grunt about it, so that probably remains true all across the board. He moves on. "The rehabilitation efforts established at TakeSushi continue as usual, and even though morale hasn't recovered, it's still high. The turnover has continued to slow, despite Yamamoto-kun's best efforts. No unusual arrests to report. Irie is still tracing the accounts, but the dead ends continue to increase." He pauses. Delicately adds: "Irie said that he still can't rule out the Hebi's account. The expenses are… suspicious."

The loose, unbuttoned cuffs of the overseer's uniform twitch. Kei entertains the thought that Kyoya had reached for his tonfa for a split second, even though he's not wearing them currently. He remembers there being some kind of drama when Kyoya's boss had tried to tell him he couldn't have them… well. He'd changed his mind quickly enough.

"Our priority remains locating that King Herbivore," Kyoya says evenly, not even glancing at him. He tilts his head. "After he's been returned to us, then I'll bother with the despair on that snake's face when he takes his retribution."

Kei wonders if Kyoya knows or is even capable of acknowledging just how treasured he is by Sawada Tsunayoshi. He still remembers clearly the day that he thought to test Tsunayoshi's loyalty the usual way - by suggesting that by taking Kyoya's side, they'd be making an enemy of the entire Hibari family. How a person reacts to that is always how they decide if that person will move up from being a simple lackey into being a true part of the Disciplinary Committee.

For Sawada Tsunayoshi, the moment that Kei had suggested that Kyoya's own family was his enemy? In that instant, the Demon that he truly is had shown its face. Every hair on Kei's body had stood on end, and the simple conviction entered his heart that if Tsunayoshi isn't _stopped,_ he'll try to murder the entire clan.

( _Really?_ He'd thought incredulously afterwards: _Sawada kill somebody?_ That timid guy who was even shorter than _Kei_ with the big clueless eyes that begged to be tormented? That total bottom-of-the-food-chain? Surely something like that is impossible. Surely, surely, surely.)

It's not really Kei's place to worry about why and who Kyoya wants killed, but it's unusually vicious of him to want _Tsunayoshi_ to do it. Not because Tsunayoshi is particularly cruel in the manner in which he accomplishes his tasks - it's obvious that Tsunayoshi feels that surviving with those memories is often the more punishing consequence for their actions, and he's not particularly bloodthirsty - but because of the way Kyoya's cousin is. For someone like Hibari Ikumi, who is openly obsessed with Sawada Tsunayoshi… to make her face her actions by having Tsunayoshi take his retribution?

Well, maybe he's really the only one who can, given her last name. For whatever reason, the entire Hibari Clan seems to think that they can't directly lay hands on any Sawadas. Tsunayoshi has abused that more than once when they provoke him.

"As you say," Kei acknowledges. "As for Naito Longchamp-"

Not for the first time, Kei is happy that he's been given his own aids to help manage all of the matters related to Tsunayoshi. What had seemed like a simple task had quickly grown into some kind of gargantuan monster. It's a bit ridiculous the way that Tsunayoshi collects people, but - well. Since Kyoya also benefits from it, then Kei will do his best.

It's for that reason that they'd been optimistic, of course. Knowing that Tsunayoshi had been taken… that hadn't happened immediately. Tsunayoshi has his own way of going about things, and only sometimes does he ask for help. That independence of his is troubling - although Kei is pretty sure that Tsunayoshi is trying in his own way to protect others by doing things on his own. But it means that it's not until late that first night, when he fails to come home for dinner, that they realize that something has happened.

Getting eyewitness accounts, and even some recordings from certain stores… they'd been optimistic. But the people behind his abduction are on another level completely from the people that they're used to fighting.

It's been some time since Kei has felt like a child at the whims of useless adults. He hates that feeling more than anything else. From now on, they'll definitely meet their opponents on a level playing field no matter what.

"-and that's all," he says as he finishes his report. Something like this could easily be communicated through the mailing list, of course, but - as Irie has pointed out, stuff like that isn't secure.

"Is that it?" Kyoya asks. His tone is flat and disinterested the way it always is outside of a fight. Kei used to cringe at it, thinking that it was a reflection of him - when really, it has nothing to do with him at all. "Fine. See to that matter of the female carnivore."

"... as you say," Kei says.

-0-

It's amazing to think back and remember that there was a time he didn't know people like Hibari Kyoya and Sawada Tsunayoshi.

Looking back, Kei had been a pretty stupid kid. His world had been broken and so he lost direction and meaning. The world had gone dark and cold and empty, and he hadn't known what to do then. Because of things that weren't his fault, because of decisions that weren't made in consideration to him, because he was depending on others and they weren't dependable-

And then the Disciplinary Committee found him. (Thank goodness it was the Disciplinary Committee that found him.)

He doesn't know it at the time, but Hibari Kyoya himself hand picks him to join. Kyoya handpicks everyone to join the Committee. Back then, it feels a little bit amazing. _He_ has somehow been found worthy because - even if he doesn't directly meet Hibari Kyoya, he knows of him, and working for the Committee, he ends up in the same room several times. Hibari Kyoya is a person who commands respect and fear. Only it's more than just 'fear,' isn't it? Kyoya demands _awe_ with his simple existence.

With the benefit of experience, and his association with Tsunayoshi, Nakamoto Kei is able to look back and realize that those unknown qualifications that Hibari Kyoya looks for when recruiting for the Committee is 'a desire to prove oneself.'

That's all it is. There is no hidden quality to a person, no 'worthiness' that makes them picked. They just have to be looking for a purpose and be willing to swear allegiance to Kyoya above all others.

If Kei asked Tsunayoshi about it, he's sure that Tsunayoshi would wonder: what's so bad about that?

-0-

From the shipping warehouse where Kyoya has taken over regardless of the will of people in authority, Kei takes the tram up toward the residential neighborhoods. The line ends long before where he needs to be, but like all residents of Namimori, Kei isn't afraid to let his legs do the rest of the work.

'Female Carnivore' … what a scary thing to say. Kyoya doesn't often say things like that. He usually has a lack of respect for anyone he calls a 'carnivore,' but in this case, Kei gets it. Normally, a person who can only survive by preying on others is someone to sneer at, and think of as pathetic, after all. But for this one?

Involving those people in the investigation had never been their intention, but shortly after finding out that Sawada Tsunayoshi had been taken against his will to a place far away, Sasagawa Kyoko had turned into someone else. It's scary. It reminds Kei of Tsunayoshi, if he's being completely honest. How many people around him even remember what Tsunayoshi used to be like as a kid? They might think they know, since Tsunayoshi is the kind of person who prefers to go with the flow and so he'll let idiots think whatever they want, but-

(has there always been something dangerous about him?)

Sasagawa Kyoko is also turning into someone like that, Kei thinks. She's been gentle and only thinking of simple things and worrying over her blockheaded brother all this time, but… for some reason she's really taking Tsunayoshi's disappearance to heart. Why is that, he wonders. Did she like him? That wasn't the sense he got of things, not from Kyoko or Tsunayoshi or Hana, but - he's not sure why else it would bother her so much. No matter how good of partners they made in taking over the entire school, it wasn't like they were even actually friends.

"Do your best, Nakamoto-kun," Sasagawa-san says solemnly as she lets him in, the way she normally does. "I'd like to work at it, too, but someone has to keep an eye on Nana-chan, you know."

("There's no point in worrying about Kyoko-chan and Hana-chan," Tsunayoshi had said, idly shoving his hair out of his face and glancing at Kei from the corner of his eye: slanted and sly, like they're co-conspirators sharing secrets. "Sasagawa-san used to go to work with my Dad, you know? In the construction business." He seems to find some kind of bitter humor in saying so. "She's strong - she said it herself. So we can rely on her to make sure nothing bad happens to either of them."

"Relying on an adult," Kei had protested mulishly, and the bitterness had left Tsunayoshi's face. It always pleased Tsunayoshi most when he came across points that he was aligned with another person on.

"It's hard for me to leave it at that, too," Tsunayoshi had assured him with a warm smile, "but - in this case, it's probably fine." And he'd really seemed to mean that. And it had really worked out that way, too.

Kei had thought, then: _Sasagawa-san who works with That Person in construction - I see._ For people like them, it's easy to see to the heart of the matter: people so proficient in those kinds of activities that they don't need a day job.

How scary.)

If Sasagawa Naoko wants to do something to help them then she should. But Kei isn't here to start a fight with some useless adult who can't even use their strength for anything that counts, and goes instead up to Kyoko's room. Of course, he's not allowed to shut the door, but it's not as if he'd want to in the first place.

Sasagawa Kyoko sits at the desk up against the wall, her phone still clutched in hand even after she's called for him to come in. The charms that hang from it are as cute as ever - a boxing glove charm, and a heart that Kei suspects comes from some kind of cartoon given how ornate it is.

"Nakamoto-kun," she says. "Thanks for coming all this way."

It's not as though he had a choice, but - he doesn't hate it, either. "Sasagawa-chan. There haven't been any new leads on our end."

"I didn't think so," she says, but she still seems disheartened. She has that same keen look in her eye that Kei has always mostly associated with Tsunayoshi, though the length of her hair, and how it hangs neat and straight help to stop it from becoming weird.

Tsunayoshi had always called it a 'household' - his, and also that Kyoko had one. He must have seen this side of her a long time ago; it's only now that Kei thinks he can acknowledge it of her, too.

He launches into another recitation of the tasks and information that they've collected so far. It's a bit odd for Kyoya to have shifted his attention to her like this, he thinks - part of him rebels at the idea that Kyoko is taking Tsunayoshi's place. She can't. Tsunayoshi is too well embedded into Kei's heart, and the heart of the rest of the Committee. They won't accept a replacement no matter what - but it strangely seems that despite being close before, Tsunayoshi's 'household' won't approach Kyoko on their own. Yamamoto, Haru, and Kyoya even won't call her if they can help it, let alone come face to face.

"It's more of the same on our end as well," Kyoko says, pinching her brow unhappily. "Nagi-chan tells me that there hasn't been anymore information from the streets or from Haru's contacts, either."

"Ah - and how is Nagi-san?" Kei asks, startled to be reminded about her. It's not his fault, since he's pretty sure that outside of Kyoko, everyone else other than Tsunayoshi forgets about her, too - but Tsunayoshi will want to know that they've been looking out for her as well, the same as his mother. He asks after her all the time, after all.

Kyoko smiles, and it's like her old ones - bright and full of warmth. "Nagi-chan is doing well - right, Nagi?"

Kei startles, turning toward the doorway. Although she's seventeen like the rest of them, Nagi jumps to be noticed peering into the room like a little kid, just her fingertips and one eye peering through the doorway. "Yes," she says, quiet as she always is, blushing a bit as she edges through, clutching that same, massive white owl plush that she's had since Kei met her. "Um," she adds, glancing at Kei uneasily. "S-so, Tsunayoshi-san hasn't been found yet, then?"

If Kyoya is Kei's God, then for Nagi, Tsunayoshi might be something similar, he thinks, and softens his stance a bit. "We know who has taken him, if not why. It's just a matter of finding where now. Overseas, we think."

Nagi hums, ducking her head a bit so that her bangs cover most of her face, one dark indigo eye watching him warily. "The world outside… it's really big," she murmurs.

"Yes, but - well, it's Tsunayoshi, after all," Kei says. "Even if it takes him a while, he won't let anyone stand between him and his friends."

"Nakamoto-kun is right," Kyoko agrees. "I'm sure that as soon as it's safe to, he'll find a way back."

"But - what if…" Nagi clings to the plush, lifting it higher in her arms so that she can bury her face into the back of it's head. The expression on that owl is a bit weird, for a toy, Kei thinks. "What if they've killed him?"

Kei had thought so, too. He still thinks so, from time to time. As difficult as it is to think of anyone getting the upper hand on Tsunayoshi - as impossible as it seems to think that he might be _dead…_ it's a possibility, isn't it? If they managed to steal him in the first place? But there's been no ransom notice, as far as they've been able to find out, so? What if the Hibari family finally got tired of Tsunayoshi's meddling? What if their forbearance has finally reached its limit?

_After all, that snake in the grass-_

"Kyoya-taichou, and Yamamoto-kun, and Haru-kun, they've all sworn it isn't so," Kei says, trying to project all of their certainty into his voice, even if he isn't sure that he believes it himself. How would they know? Even if Nana her self swears that Tsunayoshi isn't the sort of person that dies easily- aren't they all invested in one outcome? Isn't that just 'wishful thinking?'

He doesn't want to think about it like that, but what if Tsunayoshi never comes back?

-0-

But all those years ago, Kyoya did pick him up and use him, so even if Kei is just a tool, he doesn't hold a grudge about it. To him, Kyoya is still the God that gave him Meaning for his life, that gave him purpose and direction and comrades and even to some extent: Sawada Tsunayoshi. Because if it weren't for the fact that Kei had seen the way things were heading regarding Kyoya and Tsunayoshi, he never would have approached that guy on his own. Not ever, ever ever. Tsunayoshi is _strange._

Somehow, early on, Kei makes the mistake of thinking that they're the same kind of person. He's never taken notice of Tsunayoshi before he'd started to bother the Committee, but the person that Kei sees isn't at all like the other people that Kyoya rejects to join. He's not sure why Kyoya refuses again and again and again to acknowledge Tsunayoshi's existence.

(With the benefit of hindsight: of course Kyoya doesn't acknowledge Tsunayoshi. Tsunayoshi won't heedlessly swear his life and loyalty and allegiance away to Kyoya. Tsunayoshi wants _Kyoya,_ and Kyoya doesn't want anything to do with that. He doesn't trust it. Not yet.

The first mistake that Kei makes is upholding Kyoya as a God when Kyoya is just a person, and suffering the same as him.)

At first, Kei thinks to make a friend of Tsunayoshi. He feels bad that his God does not acknowledge Tsunayoshi, despite the other trying, and trying, and trying. So being friends is- well, Tsunayoshi isn't anything at all like Kei, he learns that fast enough. In the first place, Tsunayoshi sees the world strangely. To him, it's a place of darkness and shadows and bad things, even though he has Haru beside him. Secondly, he has some kind of quality that makes other people - Gods - _see_ him whether he likes it or not.

And then Kei's God makes the decision to remain on the Nami Middle campus while teaching himself the material that Kusakabe Tetsuya sends over, and completing the schoolwork on his own to be sent back and graded, all for the sake of-

 _If a God bends like this, then what is Sawada Tsunayoshi?_ And then when he sees Tsunayoshi that first time in the new year: he doesn't recognize him. Not really. How had Kei even thought for a second that this thing was anything at all like himself? It surely hasn't been that long, a week maybe, since he last saw him, but it's a bit like Tsunayoshi has peeled back some kind of mask or skin.

(Nakamoto Kei has sworn allegiance to his God, and yet: Sawada Tsunayoshi smiles, and Kei's heart yearns to be at his side. He's surely some kind of _Demon._ )

-0-

"Well, of course he is," Saitoh Itsuki says to him, willingly in the Committee's presence, in Hoshino's presence, in _Kyoya's_ presence simply because Sawada Tsunayoshi asked it of him. Saitoh looks down at Kei a little pityingly. "Didn't you notice? Sawada is the kind of person that you end up following whether you like it or not. Be thankful that he's a good person, okay?"

But is he really?

-0-

Outside of those three: Kyoya, and Haru, and Yamamoto - Nakamoto Kei is probably the one that has seen the most of Sawada Tsunayoshi's different faces. It's not that he goes out of the way to hide them or anything - as sly and cunning as Tsunayoshi can be, he's not the kind of person that tries to hide the secrets of his heart. They're obvious to read: _lay hands on the people that belong to him, and suffer the consequences._

It's hard to say if 'Tsunayoshi is a good person.' Can someone like that really be 'good?' Does he really give the people who trespass him enough warning not to - or do those people deserve to reap what they've sown for being so callous in the first place?

It's the kind of complex morality that Kei can't figure out on his own. He doesn't know. He can't say. Hana called him a 'natural born subordinate' and maybe this is what she means by that: Kei would rather trust Kyoya and Tsunayoshi's lead and allow himself to be made a tool so that he doesn't have to think of these things himself. He thinks that they're good people - he thinks that they're doing good things, but-

-0-

Kei is fifteen when the girl who doesn't go to the Nami campus approaches them, pulled into herself with dark circles under her eyes and jumping at the slightest movement. It's him that she approaches, and he's with Tsunayoshi at the time, and she tugs on Kei's sleeve and says that she needs help. Kei hears her out, even though she's not wearing a Nami uniform because this is where Kyoya was always going with this, and-

"Ahh-" Tsunayoshi says. It sounds a bit painful. Sympathetic. Suffering because she's suffering. He smiles at her and she stares at him with wide eyes and Kei watches it happen: that moment when people _see_ Sawada Tsunayoshi. "It'll be okay now," he promises her, his eyes wide open and his expression gentle. "The Committee and I - we'll fix this, okay?"

Although she's been flinching from the boys, somehow she starts to lean in toward Tsunayoshi. Something kindles inside her. A light flickers in her eyes. Kei thinks something like that is called 'hope.'

Or maybe it's just reverence.

(The moment when they _see_ him is like watching a God be born, isn't it?)

"Are there friends you can stay with? Or will you be comfortable waiting on school grounds?" Tsunayoshi asks her, and goes out of his way to make sure she feels safe and comfortable, and then they use the Committee resources.

"Are you sure you want to come along?" Tsunayoshi asks, looking up at Kei with wide blinking eyes. There's only a shade of that concern he showed that girl left - his mask is peeling back, but he has enough humanity to look at Kei, while he rings Haru, and say with complete confidence: "I think Haru and I will be enough for this."

Despite the cold prickling at the back of Kei's neck, he says: "She asked the Committee for help, so-"

And Tsunayoshi says, "I see. That's fine. Ah - in that case, could you bring someone strong with you? A person who can lift heavy things? Actually, if Nozaki-kun is available, that would be ideal."

Kei isn't sure to this day what he really thought was going to happen when he meets up with Tsunayoshi and Haru outside of that loan shark's home, and saw them wearing gloves. Teaching that man a lesson - that much he'd been sure of. Kyoya himself would have 'bitten' that guy to death and left him crippled for life - maybe left in a hospital bed. Maybe he thought that they'd use Nozaki's strength to break through the locked door.

"Ah, you're here," is how that Demon greets them mildly, head cocked, shoulders relaxed, feet set just so. Haru stands behind him, her sharp eyes cold and narrow, and she has a crowbar in hand. The Demon turns to her and holds out its hand, and as she places the crowbar into it, it says: "You'll be quick with the files?"

"Hrmph!" Haru sticks her nose in the air. "Leave it to me! There hasn't been a lock I can't crack in _years._ "

"Sorry for doubting you for even a moment," the Demons says with an uncanny, indulgent smile on its face, and then it turns and drives the narrow end of the crowbar into the seam of the door.

Kei can't quite help but to jump and look around at the neighborhood, but - well, it's not a great one. They'll probably mind their own business beyond maybe calling the cops if they're feeling particularly virtuous. It's evening. People are having their dinners.

With strength that he shouldn't be capable of with his small frame, the Demon drives the crowbar in deep and then heaves. Haru adds her strength to it, and with a thunderous crack, the door gives way. There's shouting from the inside - Kei recognize the man who charges the opening the broken door has created from the files. The Demon says: "Haru."

Haru reaches through the opening and she has a taser in hand. She fires it without flinching.

While the man collapses and lays convulsing on the floor, the Demon turns and smiles at Nozaki. It's an empty kind of smile that doesn't reach those eyes, which have turned into chrome - into mirrors, showing nothing but reflecting a person's face right back at them. "Nozaki-kun," it says mildly. "A little help?"

Kei glances up, but Nozaki seems completely unperturbed by this turn of events, moving forward and cracking the door out of its hinges. With the crowbar still dangling from its hand, the Demon steps inside.

It's mostly for the sake of not being seen on the streets outside this house after whatever happens… _happens_ that Kei follows them in. His hands are shaking. Haru goes immediately for the bank of locked filing cabinets against one wall, while the Demon is checking a door - finding the bathroom, it seems. It turns and approaches the body. The crowbar in its hand gives Kei a sudden tremor of premonition.

Like it senses that, the Demon glances at him. "It's fine to leave the rest to me," it says calmly, even though the loan shark is coming around. It grasps the man by the ankle and begins to drag him toward the bathroom. Before the door closes completely, its eyes seem to glimmer strangely.

It's the kind of noise that Kei doesn't think he'll ever forget. He's glad to have been born a son, really… really. But, ah, at least someone is around that takes umbrage at this kind of thing.

Haru is carefully, carefully setting fire to all the paper records in the file cabinets, abusing the kitchenette with that range hood over the stove, by the time that the Demon emerges from the bathroom. There are suspicious stains on its cardigan, but its face is clean and so is the crowbar.

"I found it," Haru sings out, not even looking up from where she's dumping another sheet into the trashcan standing on the stove.

"I see," the Demon says, coming over to join her at the stove. She picks up a nearby piece of paper and hands it over to it, and the Demon looks at it closely before turning back to the desk by the cabinets. There's a phone there on the desk, and he glances over at Kei and Nozaki. "Don't say anything while I make this call," he instructs them.

"Ooh!" Haru coos, abandoning the kitchenette to stand beside him, bouncing on her feet. "Can I say some things, too?"

"If you like," the Demon says, and then eyeballing the sheet, dials the number on the phone, and then clicks it over to speaker so that the dial tone rings out into the whole room. It's a bit eerie.

A man on the other end picks up. "Hello?" he asks, and he sounds like he's dreading whatever he'll hear.

Of course, if he can see where the number is coming from, it's the loan shark's number. Naturally that's no who he wants to hear from.

"I don't really get someone like you," the Demon says, as mild as milk, without bothering to say anything else, like hello, or introductions. "Allowing trash like that to lay their hands on something as precious as a family member… it's weird. I don't get it. You should have died sooner than let that happen."

For a moment, it's nothing but breathing. "W-who is this?" the man stutters. He sounds like the kind of man that would sweat. He sounds like he's probably trembling, shaking, although that's just a feeling that Kei gets rather than anything he hears. He's a little glad. For someone so cowardly that he'd let someone do something like that to his _daughter-_

The Demon's brow pinches into something a little scolding. "If you continue on this path," it says without answering that question, "you'll really become the kind of scum that isn't worth suffering to live. Please consider Chiyo-san's feelings. She doesn't need to become an orphan before even graduating high school, you know?"

"It's unforgivable," Haru says, her voice crackling and snapping like the worst kind of sky-breaking thunder, "it's really, really unforgivable! We've stepped in for Chiyo-chan's sake, but don't think for one second that you're in the clear. Despicable actions like yours… I won't forgive them!"

"That thing that's been held over your head," the Demon adds, "we'll destroy it, but… there are people listening for the moment that Chiyo-san cries out for help, so - try to become a diligent parent she can rely on, okay?"

And then he hangs up the phone. And it's not the Demon after all, but Tsunayoshi that looks across the room curiously at Nozaki. "Do you think you can break a few things around here? Take the drawers off the desk? Things like that?"

"Make it look like this guy was muscling in on territory?" Nozaki asks. "Sure."

Haru sets the final record on fire, and then takes great glee in sending all of the things on the desk flying off it with a sweep of her arms and a loud crash.

"You're a lifesaver, Nozaki-kun, Kei-kun," Tsunayoshi says lightly. Given his usual prudent, subdued character, it's said almost cheerfully. "That went quicker than I expected. We should go let Chiyo-san know that it's okay to leave."

And just like it never happened, like he doesn't have suspicious stains in worrisome colors speckled here and there on his clothing, he turns his back on this scene of a crime and walks away without showing it for one instant.

Kei's fingertips are cold. His hands shake. Doesn't he already know that sending people to prison is no good? He's certain that someone would have made the argument that the loan business was perfectly legal. That it's a private matter. That it's something for Chiyo's father to figure out for himself and decide on his own. And if this had happened to Chiyo, then how many other times had it happened?

It's scary. It's for the best.

-0-

It's the first time Kei knows of Tsunayoshi passing judgement, but it isn't the last. At seventeen, Kyoya so carelessly tosses his cousin at that Demon's mercy and Kei only sighs about it a little bit, not even surprised, no longer giving pause. There will be no mercy for the likes of Hibari Ikumi when it comes time for judgement to be passed and her judge and executioner casts his gaze upon her.

If a sickly predator attacks the herd, then the strongest, healthiest members come out and stomp that predator and gore them to death, don't they?

That's simply natural selection at work.

-0-

In the end, it's less complicated to just trust in those people. Neither Kyoya nor Tsunayoshi have a habit of asking more than he can give, no matter what, and so he learns to trust in their wisdom, absolutely. Tsunayoshi may be a Demon, and Kyoya may be a God, but despite their hobbies, they end up being gentle tyrants who work to better the lives of others. Is that so wrong?

Kei can't see how it could be.

So he swears his allegiance and he hands over his heart, and works for their sake ahead of his own, since they put everyone else before themselves. If he's a 'natural born subordinate' then he'll be the best subordinate that he can be.

-0-

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Kei just heckin… disassociates through the entire thing. "oH .. are we,, commiting a murddr.. Okey :) … im … gonna just.. Chil over here :) :) :)"
> 
> * he also has his history with loan sharks :\ but he's basically a gentle kid who dislikes violence no matter what. Pls… allow him to be a secretary somewhere, happily filing things.
> 
> * If this were a Manga, I'd use that alternative reading thing that happens sometime and use the same word for both Kyoya and Tsunayoshi. Though honestly, I'm attached to the idea of using 'bakemono' for Tsunayoshi since Kei thinks of it as a 'demon that puts on a Tsunayoshi mask.'
> 
> Fun fact, I almost had Nana call Iemitsu 'Iemi-chan' :V maybe if she ever gets mad at him?
> 
> * At the rate that things escalated from c1 to c20… Tsunayoshi at age 15 deliberately hunting down an adult who is sexually assaulting a fourteen/fifteen year old girl shouldn't be shocking. As for Haru, she's always been the more bloodthirsty of those two anyway. Remember her canon aspiration was to 'become a mafia wife?' Haru pls.
> 
> * Sasagawa Naoko can't be involved for Namimori Omerta reasons. Even if Kei knews this reason, he wouldn't be impressed. Then again, he often looks to fault adults no matter what. Kei-kun! You're seventeen already! What will you do when you're basically an adult yourself?!
> 
> * Nozaki is a new face, but at the rate that Tsunayoshi meets and collects people, it's no surprise that he'd have one in mind even for something like this... Nozaki himself once felt put into a corner where he thought he'd have to murder someone so his 'resolve' is good.
> 
> * I kind of wanted to call this intermission "God, the Devil, and Bob" :V


	4. the spaces inbetween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Verde's Intermission, or So You Had To Subdue A Bratty Sky And Then Deal With His Annoying, Self-Appointed Sun Bodyguard Without Killing Either Of Them, What Next?

* * *

 the spaces inbetween

* * *

Generally speaking, Emmerich has a certain policy when it comes to things: he doesn't perform rescue missions, nor does he do protection detail. Those things tend to get far too complicated far too quickly. Anything that requires him to predict another human being with any care or consideration - he won't do it.

And yet. There are always certain exceptions, aren't there?

His body is aching and his head is throbbing, breath fogging in the icy hallway - literally. Literal ice. Not true ice, fortunately, for all that it appears superficially similar. It's cold, but it won't cause frostbite. It makes him sluggish, but he's just about drained of his resolve already, so having the last vestiges of his flames sucked away is - unpleasant, but Emmerich has more than enough stubborn human determination to see him through this. He won't slip as easily, since it doesn't actually melt. The surface is smooth, but it's more like marble than glass or true ice: it's slightly porous, which is why it continues to drag at his reserves, and keep them from filling up.

The damnably persistent Sun that's tagging along behind him is just an added annoyance. He hates all Suns - the entire spiritual orientation. If another Sun is ever born into the world, it will still be too many Suns who exist. He should devise something that will alter the harmonics of their resolve and turn them into something less obnoxious.

"But where are you taking him?!" the brat persists.

"Who wants to know?" Emmerich demands flatly, without even pausing or looking back. "The only thing you share with this brat is a face, isn't that right?"

"It's because we share a face that I have to look after him!"

Well, if Emmerich hadn't already known that the unconscious Sky that he's tossed over his shoulder is from an important bloodline - that would have done it. Or well - he's sure that the Sunny brat following along behind like a bad smell would feel that same way about any unconscious Sky - some people are too predictable - but after all this flashiness, there's only the obvious conclusion to draw about this situation.

Certainly, it hadn't crossed Emmerich's mind earlier, when he'd borne witness to Lelia's machine ripping a whole through reality for the purpose of manifesting a human being. He'd been too caught up in what she'd managed to do herself to worry or think twice about her test subjects.

There's a rat in the system, though. He'd known that the moment the facility had shaken with an explosion - not one felt through tremors, but Emmerich had felt them anyway: first, the backlash of some Sky having a temper tantrum, and then the Call. Or not so much a Call as a Summoning, perhaps. A demand. The requirement that all who feel it subsume to that Will.

Lelia is more or less a good scientist, with good procedures. She never would have allowed strangers on site if she wasn't certain of her containment methods. Emmerich had been moved to investigate, and - well. They may have planned to suppress a Sky, but a Sun is another matter altogether.

Truly, they're the worst: the idiots of the world that can't catch a cold for being so stupid. The ones that think they're clever are even worse than that, he thinks grievously. If he wasn't about to depend on that one, he'd arrange to have another set of assassins sent after him. He'll send as many as necessary, as often as it takes - after all, the assassins only need to succeed the  _ once. _

"Listen," the annoyance following him says, his tone dipping downward and flattening, sharpening into some kind of edge, "you must be completely drained from trying to contain Nayo's Flames. Even the strongest Lightning in the world will naturally struggle against that kind of thing. Which means that right now - you're just a man weighed down with baggage."

Emmerich stops walking, and then turns and looks down his nose at this brat. He's only a teenager with cowlicked brown hair and eyes like you'd find in any civilian. There's the promise of a broad, powerful build in store for him if he can survive long enough to grow up, though he won't ever be a tall man. He's certainly not as shrimpy as the kid who shares his face, whom Emmerich has thrown over his shoulders. It's not malnutrition, he can tell, but that kid's growth has somehow been stunted anyway.

This is more interesting than a twin study.

"Do you seriously mean to kill me?" Emmerich asks, peering down at this obnoxious upstart. "If you try, I won't forgive you just for being addled on some Sky's flames."

"I'm not addled!" he protests, outraged.

"That's a funny statement for someone who was taking point on this kid's rampage," Emmerich points out. "I watched you brain no less than three security guards, a doctor, and someone I'm pretty sure was an intern. I couldn't tell. This brat's advanced technique made too quick of work of them."

"It was because it was an advanced technique that I got involved in the first place!" The brat says, aggrieved. "That - he hasn't been trained to do something like that! Not on this scale, obviously! I thought… I thought he was going to kill himself for sure."

Should Emmerich be moved by any of this? He's honestly too exhausted to reference the materials he has to help him in times like these, when 'emotional appeals' and 'social understanding' come into play. If someone kills themselves from doing something stupid, then that has nothing to do with Emmerich.

In either case: "a guy like this won't die from using his Flames to the last scrap," he says. "If such a thing even exists for him. A normal person, maybe. But this guy, where ever he's been hiding? He's a cockroach who won't be defeated. Guys like him are the worst."

He should know. He's comrades with a handful of them. Break one resolve, and they might go and lick their wounds for a bit, but they quickly find another resolve to stand behind on no time.

"Anyway, I have no intention of hurting this brat," he says of the Sky draped over his shoulders, "and I haven't disagreed with you coming along, so if you aren't going to attack me, shut up and follow along obediently."

"But why are you taking him  _ back _ there?" he wants to know, like the tiresome child he is.

"Are you some kind of idiot?" Emmerich asks. "If those others are still alive, then they should be rescued, too."

That at least shuts the idiot up, which is good timing, since they're approaching the epicenter of the brat Sky's temper tantrum. This must be the storage hall, Emmerich thinks. Their procedures were far too tight for summoning that Sun brat to be the first - he's sure he can't be the only one to have noticed that. There's confidence, and then there's the kind of almost-carelessness that comes with over familiarity with the actions.

The hallway is a  _ mess. _ As it should be, coated with frozen Flames the way it is. What a monstrous, untrained brat. They'd managed to locate the storage room, the two of them, since Emmerich is fairly certain neither had been independently moved while Lelia and her pet scientists had poked and prodded and dragged Emmerich and his fellow scientists over coals, trying to determine if they could get anything useful out of them. If any of them were the types they wanted to recruit.

So, these two had gone looking for something - though Emmerich isn't sure how they would have known  _ to _ go looking. The rat? Had one of the assistants slipped them some kind of note?

He could ask that Sunny brat and get an answer, but adjusting for the nuances of human experience - he'd rather guess for himself with data he's collected with his own senses than get the events filtered through that brat's eyes.

So. They'd found the storage. What about it set the Sky off, though? Naturally, any Sky that could meet Lelia's requirements wouldn't be the type to do things in a half-assed way, but for this scrawny, untrained brat to cause such destruction… Emmerich regrets knocking him out so fast, a little bit. He's not much of a combatant, so it had been necessary to do or become a part of the body count, but more than anything right now: he's curious to study the Sky he has tossed over his shoulders. It won't replace what he came here for, but it's interesting all the same.

Something scrapes against the ice. If it had been true ice - real ice - it probably wouldn't have made a noise, but the expectant hush - that's telling.

That Sunny brat hears it too, quickly putting his body between Emmerich and his burden and the door that the sound came from behind - not for Emmerich's sake, of course, but for the kid he has on his shoulders. Of course, he'd also disarmed that Sunny brat after he'd taken down the Sky, because whether or not he's a good fighter, Emmerich isn't the Strongest Lightning for nothing. Even if his Flames have been completely drained overwhelming some Sky brat having a tantrum.

(Even after all of this gratuitously frozen Will splashed everywhere, it had  _ still _ taken all of Emmerich's to overwhelm that brat. Christ.)

"Who's there?" the brat barks.

Emmerich clicks his tongue. "You aren't inviting them in for tea. Go look."

Regardless of the angry glance the brat gives him, he at least listens. There's something troubling about that; Emmerich is pretty sure that for the amount of hostility shown to him, that Sunny brat shouldn't actually be paying attention to what he says… or even be tolerating him carrying around this unconscious Sky if he's really that addled by the brat's Flames. Just because Emmerich doesn't actually mean any harm to either of these brats doesn't mean they should trust him so quickly… he's pretty sure anyway. Ah. Trying to see things from other people's points of view - it's going to hurt his already throbbing head.

The brat moves forward cautiously enough, cocking his head to listen. Though his Flames have to be siphoning into the Will ice just the same as Emmerich's, it seems like he might be using some kind of Flame technique - enhancing his hearing, perhaps? He's keeping his Flame uses so minor that it falls far beneath Emmerich's ability to sense it, but that what he guesses from the way the brat moves his head and the way the muscles around his ears flex.

The way he perks is just like a dog before he carelessly swings the closet door open. Before Emmerich can even berate him about it, he sees what it is that the brat must have heard.

More brats. Just what Emmerich wanted and needed. No, that makes sense for Lelia's methods, doesn't it? A bunch of growing teenagers that might run away from home or something like that, for the ones that are actually native to this reality. It's not like she really has to hide the disappearances in the other realities, since it's likely impossible for those people to argue about it in the first place. But teenagers aren't as trained in Flame use, and tend to have stronger emotional reactions, which create stronger Flames, and usually don't have a lot of inconvenient things like 'alcoholism' or 'drug addiction' that cause them to have weird reactions to sedatives.

A Sun, of course, will burn through everything regardless. Definitely a rat, then.

The small blond brat with big brown eyes yelps from his place on the ground, cradling the larger, unconscious brat with his body almost protectively. Darts, is it, Emmerich thinks, taking notice of the debris cast a bit away from them.

" _ Dino, _ " the Sunny brat says incredulously.

"D-don't come closer!" the blond brat yelps, shoving his heel against the ice and trying to drag the unconscious one with him, even as he twists, doing his best to cover him with his own body.

"No, ah-" the Sunny brat flails his hands out, dropping into a crouch where he stands in the doorway. "It's okay! We're not the bad guys! We were taken, too - I mean, me, and that guy that weirdo is carrying. Nayo wouldn't leave without everyone, so- but, ah, trying to make the way safe, we got a bit sidetracked."

That's a lie, judging by the cringe the brat makes while telling it. For all that he's definitely some Underworld brat where he comes from, it's a bit surprising to watch him continue to be so  _ bad _ at it. The blond brat - Dino? - watches him mistrustfully for a long moment, still trying to protect the larger brat with his own body.

"You… you probably don't recognize me," the Sunny brat says, "since where I come from, you're a lot older than I am, so in your world, I think I'm probably… five? But you're Gherardino Cavallone, right? And that's Xanxus of Vongola."

Emmerich isn't really the sort that pays attentions to Famiglias, or who the current leaders or heirs are, but now that the Sunny brat has mentioned those families by name, he supposes it's possible. If so, then it's also possible that Lelia is a person who bares certain grudges… he's aware that she's had meetings with some Famiglias for funding and hadn't managed to go into business with any of them. That also suggests that everything she's done here, it wasn't for fun, or to see if she could. A Famiglia that funded this kind of enterprise would want to reap all the benefits for themselves… but it seems that Lelia couldn't bare to part with the results of her actions.

The young Cavallone heir scowls. "You'd know that if you'd kidnapped us in the first place," he points out. The way he's clinging to Xanxus is… strange, Emmerich thinks. Although obviously the relationship they have in this world has no bearing on their relationship in another, he didn't think they were that close. Especially with the age difference between them. Kids of that age usually have their egos get in the way, right?

Come to think of it. Doesn't Xanxus have that ultra rare condition of having two Flame types in equal amounts?

There's no way for 'human beings' to be so neat and pure as to have only  _ one _ Flame type. That in itself is unusual. People aren't sterile environments and things as subjective as 'desire to live' and 'resolve' and 'determination'... naturally it's complicated. It's having those impurities strong enough to register at all that's a bit unusual. Those impurities being strong enough to register as 'different Flame types' is significant.

But of all the humans in the world alive at this moment, only Xanxus has two Flames of such equal measure that they're called something as unique as 'Wrath' - as if they're a new category all of their own instead of an equal combination of two different types.

Something like that would be highly undesirable in Lelia's work, Emmerich thinks - which is why he assumes she must hold some grudge against this world's Xanxus. For that younger Sky to be clinging so…

"Take this," Emmerich says, shrugging the unconscious Sky off his shoulders and handing him off to that Sunny brat. He pays them no further mind even as that Sunny brat yelps and flails and is bowled over under the unexpected dead weight of an unconscious body. The Cavallone's eyes widen with alarm and he cringes, trying to pull the much larger, more muscular body of the Vongola Decimo with him. Although it's unlikely that this younger Xanxus really would be the Decimo yet in their world.

Or, Emmerich thinks as he reaches out and settles his hand on the teenager's back, feeling for some kind of resonance at all - ever. He glances up at the Cavallone heir, who shakes and holds on tight, his eyes lensing with Sky Flames as he tests Emmerich's intentions.

"I see. So you've made a Guardian," he says to that blond brat. "Congratulations."

Well, he certainly doesn't seem happy about it. Actually, it looks like he might cry, and Emmerich uncomfortably pulls back from the pair while the Sunny brat makes a disbelieving noise.

"He can't!" he says, still sprawled on his back like a turtle under the limp body of that annoying Sky. "Xanxus is a Sky himself! Or-" he glances down at the Sky that shares his face and blinks rapidly.

"In a bizarre situation like this, don't be surprised," Emmerich says flatly, even as he continues retreating from the emotional Cavallone heir. Crying children, crying women -  _ crying men. _ He hates all varieties. "It's almost certain that Xanxus was once a Sky, but with those Wrath Flames… if he was carelessly abused by this place, they may have permanently destroyed his Will, in a way."

It seems like Lelia has already done half of what Emmerich entertained the idea of himself - with a cocktail of hallucinogenic and a program that reconstructed an 'inner world' using a person's own memories, allowing the brain to populate it as it expected to instead of trying to use someone clever enough to construct one  _ for _ them. What an efficient and terrifying process.

It's too bad that the kid who had been throwing a temper tantrum had shown a resolve that wouldn't be satisfied until the entire place and everyone in it was crushed. Retrieving the information in the data banks… if Lelia has off-site servers, then they're sure to have already been pulled and recovered when she made the decision to run away in the first place.

Clever woman. Anyone halfway intelligent would run before facing a Sky on a rampage. Despite her overconfidence in their containment measures, she'd still made plans for what would happen if that containment broke.

Emmerich wonders what it was that Xanxus had been put through that caused his Resolve to waver that way - into destruction, rather than protection. Well, he's heard that Xanxus and the Nono Vongola's relationship is rocky at best. There's no telling how that man brought up his youngest son - what must be fresher in this younger Xanxus' memory over the Decimo Vongola's.

"Oh, hey," the Sunny brat says in alarm as the Cavallone heir begins to sniffle in earnest.

"Stay here," Emmerich tells them hastily, as if they won't. That Sunny brat could carry that dead weight if he tried, but he seems unlikely to abandon a Sky in distress and a Sky in distress isn't likely to abandon his one and only Guardian. Fairly confident that they'll stay put, Emmerich returns his attention to approaching the storage area. He'll need to find them wheeled cots if they're to get into any sort of order at all before that guy responds to the call that Emmerich made when this all first began.

The brain is a funny thing, though, he reflects, making better time now that he's not carrying an unconscious teenager. It's stupid and suggestible. That someone manage to manipulate another person's Will with a program similar to a  _ game _ \- well, perhaps it's not so surprising. Mental illness is the same way. Although they all live in the same reality, some brains manage to make that world into something different and terrifying.

Ah. Storage pods. Emmerich pauses in the doorway, looking at all of them. This is Lelia's dark secret, then. She wanted to collect Sky Flames, but it's not as if she could do it without the Underworld taking notice and then crushing her completely, right? There must have been a Seed Sky - the first Sky that she got her hands on, in order to start things off. And look at all these failures.

Although that temperamental little Sky had started his tantrum here, he'd been strangely conscientious of his fellow experiments. That explains why he hadn't gone for the power source, despite going out of his way to target the equipment. There's clearly a sheet of frozen Will at the side of one of those pods, which has a light on it in - sprayed out in an array, where he'd stood next to it and looked inside. It's thin, and if it had been normal ice, it would have melted already. It's obvious where he'd moved away from the pod toward the door. The doorway… it's frozen open by a thick, chunky coating of Will, like a hapless afterthought, or - no. Considering that's a thin coat on the floor and not the pods, it's likely that little Sky hadn't even realized about it.

Emmerich touches the chunky ice that has kept the door open, and though it's frozen so he can't honestly feel the resolve behind the Flames, he imagines that it must be something powerful and gut-deep. Revulsion, perhaps. Abhorrence. Stepping through, he approaches the pod that had triggered the tantrum, and - oh.

"That phenotype is quite distinctive," Emmerich muses, even as he reaches for the screen to take a look at the information regarding this captive. 'Yuni' huh? Although Emmerich already intended to get Luce involved simply because of the nature of this thing… as Sky Arcobaleno, it's her responsibility, but - as long as he's known, Luce's bloodline only ever throws singular children. It's been an unbroken line. So. This is one of her family members from another world, huh?

Lelia probably would have suffered a kinder fate if she'd stayed behind and faced that temperamental child he'd subdued in the first place. Luce isn't well known for her generosity in instances such as this.

He does have to wonder, though, why this of all things is what set off that little Sky's rampage. From what Emmerich has been able to discern, it's likely that he's native to this world, and with Yuni obviously being a transplant… and Luce being the only surviving member of her phenotype, it's a bit curious, isn't it? Although, where a cockroach like him could have been hiding… it's a problem.

Still, knowing that one of Luce's family has been involved is casting certain suspicions on this operation. That rat he's been looking for - it might be from inside the system itself. Certainly, Luce's only real bloodline ability is the one that has seen her called a 'seer,' but… her ability to get along with a collaborate with other Skies is unparalleled. She's tried explaining it to him before, but since it's not anything that Emmerich has ever been able to measure for himself, he's not sure he's ever truly accepted that she's able to resonate like that. But if he accepts that as 'true' and gives the benefit of a doubt to this relative of hers, then-

Emmerich looks around the storage room, at all the dark pods - some darker than others, which isn't their natural state, he suspects. He spots the open pair of pods, which must have belonged to the Cavallone heir and the not-Decimo. But beyond that, he finally spots the last lit pod in the room, held a bit separate from the others. It doesn't immediately draw the eye, but looking at the way the room is arranged… yes, Emmerich can spot a pattern to it.

"So, patient Zero, is it," he murmurs, abandoning the Giglio Nero heir and moving to inspect the occupant of that pod so far away. Yes. If he's to presume that their containment has been like this all along, then the condition of this person inside this pod… he would say that this is probably Lelia's Seed Sky - the first one she got her hands on, and almost certainly one native to this world. Yes, almost certainly, given that there's nothing but a name given to this Sky on the display: Narcisse.

The phone in his pocket rings. Emmerich clicks his tongue and barely bothers to glance at the display to see an unknown number before answering it. "Verde," he says.

"It's that backup you requested," the slightly weary tones of the Cavallone heir say. "But - ah, far be it from me to question one of the Strongest, but have you seen the outside of this place?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well - it's summer in Italy, but - this place, it's coated in ice."

Emmerich pauses, adjusting for that. The brat never even left the halls of the facility, so how - no, the 'how' isn't important. It's obvious his resolve had been to crush the entire place and everyone in it with that fit of pique, so naturally he would have done his best to trap everyone inside. "Give me a moment, and I'll send you an escape route you can use to enter. We have a bit of a situation here."

Hanging up in order to use his phone to pull up the floor plans on them, Emmerich sighs, his head throbbing painfully. This is definitely something he can't just dump on his comrades and leave them to it, isn't it? The moment a blood-related member of the Giglio Nero got involved… yes, that was when he should have known that he'd have to abandon his plans for a time. How irritating.

Well, no. Certainly Lelia's mess with all these Skies has a higher priority than his own mission. And anyway, the trail brought him here in the first place, so maybe he won't have to abandon it entirely. Just bide his time until this mess with breaking the fabric of time-space is done with. Certainly, a bit of time won't really change the situation that thirteen years hasn't already.

He sends the floor plans and then casts his eyes out on all those dark pods. Well. So what will they do about that?

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Our 'Mega Crossover Au' Crew has been fully introduced! It's Tsunayoshi, Zunetto, Dino, Xanxus, Yuni, and Byakuran. Although Tsunayoshi and Byakuran are from the same main world :V which is the one they're in right now. The 'native' world.
> 
> There's no reason for someone who isn't Japanese to have a name like Byakuran, so it's one he picked out himself lmao. RIP Bya-kun. I almost named him Fiore, but I liked the connotations of Narcisse better, plus his aesthetic seems a bit French, no? Also the idea that all Flame families are in Italy is something I continue to rebel against :\ the Mafia maybe, but come on.
> 
> It's not really related, but Nana's family was French, too! Although they don't have a lot of native Sky bloodlines, since those got decimated during that Revolution that was had some time back. France has a stunningly low percentage of Skies to this day. Nana embodies their culture of "we don't need such a thing."
> 
> * I had Emmerich mention it, but in case it got missed: You kidnap a sky, pump them full of hallucinogens, and get VR going that causes them to relive the moments when their flames ran hottest, and then harvest those flames. It doesn't require a lot from their captors since their own brain is populating the world using information it already has! The human brain is kind of hilarious that way. It fills in a lot of gaps in everyday life with what you 'expect' to see and what 'makes sense' to see, even if that's not really there. Why would VR that happens inside the 'players' head be any different?
> 
> So Chapters 1-20 was Tsunayoshi reliving his earliest moments of Flame activation, and at the end of the chapter where he tells Clan Hibari to go fuck themselves, that was his Flames being harvested. You'll remember that he describes it as 'something vital being drained out' and his 'soul being ripped from his body.'
> 
> I mean, you could probably also just torture a Sky physical to get what you want, but it's safer to sedate them, right? Less likelihood of them going on a rampage and blowing up your facility lmao.
> 
> Lelia is the worst.
> 
> * Xanxus's Sky Flame broke over bringing Yuni into this world. I'm sure he won't hold a grudge about that at all! But just to be on the safe side, let's not tell him, anyway, okay? :) :) :)
> 
> * RIP ME. No one mentioned until @Skilvh and Shilvh did that I spelled 'Xanxus' wrong, writing it 'Xanxus' the way it's said ':.U


	5. all good devils masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xanxus' intermission, or How I Lost My Sky Flame And Learned To Get Along With Lunatics

* * *

 All Good Devils Masquerade

* * *

Xanxus takes back about a third of the shitty things he's said about that annoying Superbi brat. He's never been as annoyed with him as he's _seemed_ of course, because if anyone at that fucking school had ever realized that he was actually receptive and could form Guardian bonds then it would have been a blood bath. That _brat_ had noticed, which was a point in his fucking favor along with general Flame compatibility, which is probably why he'd been so fucking stubborn about the whole fucking thing.

Not that any of that really matters now, of course.

Actions aside, Xanxus has known since he first began toddling around the brothel that throwing a fit about things won't do anything but briefly blow off some steam. Later, when he's known as 'of Vongola' and he's throwing masterwork furniture at the walls, he figures that it makes him feel better _immediately_ afterwards, and for the five or ten minutes after that, but the problem still hasn't been fixed and he's lost face losing his cool.

Then again, what face does he really have to lose? Being the bastard streetrat of a man as loved as Timoteo Vongola… it's obvious how that would play out. Even though it was the man's own indiscretions that resulted in Xanxus being alive in the first place - it's Xanxus who bares the brunt of those sins. Already, he can do no right for something he had nothing to do with in the first place.

If he's not being kicked around for being a whore's son, and if his mother hasn't completely lost her fucking head and gotten them kicked out of _there,_ and he's not being fucking 'disciplined' by the tutors assigned to him by Vongola because no one has tried to teach him manners before so he has no background for that shit, and Timoteo's Guardian's aren't kicking him around to 'teach' him about the goddamned Flames he manifested much younger than a child should, _in a household of fucking Skies when he's the youngest and he has no Guardians to shield him-_

Honestly, being literally torn apart and tortured before forced to relive his childhood on the streets? It's more or less just the same shit on another day. At this point, he takes it for granted that _of course_ thanks to everything he's been through so far, any last scrap of 'generosity' has finally been crushed out of his desire to live. It leaves him susceptible to the thunderous Sway that had dragged him out of the drugged coma he'd been in for _months,_ and apparently it means that a short confrontation with their captors have left him with some kind of shitty Guardian bond with that weakling, Cavallone Gherardino.

Well, what fucking ever. Xanxus rolls with the goddamned punch. It's better than getting his face broken over his own shitty pride, isn't it?

So long as the punch isn't come from some lame Sun-idiot with rotting Flames, anyway. Xanxus might only have half of his Flames left to him, but he's still a hundred times superior to that rotting-Flames shithead who got in his face about it. It's annoying just thinking about it, and Xanxus irritably flings the book off his face, sitting up in the cushy chair he'd claimed for himself.

Excessiveness aside… that Cavallone idiot knew how to furnish his house. It's miles ahead of what it'd been when he'd tagged along with Frederico to get an overview of their ally's circumstances. He doesn't know the story other than the obvious fact that House Cavallone is currently driving itself into the ground and everyone had suspected it would collapse before it's disaster of a Decimo could take charge - the most likely outcome being that Vongola would absorb the house into their own and that Gherardino would disappear to whatever ends suited Timoteo best.

Not that Xanxus is going to let that happen _now._ Cavallone Senior can't die fast enough in his opinion.

Hearing the startled squeak that his newly minted Sky gives, Xanxus amends that _one day_ he'll at least not drag Xanxus down. If he hadn't already seen who Gherardino is capable of growing up into, he'd probably be a lot more pissed about it, but he _has._ And Cavallone Dino doesn't posture and while part of Xanxus is inclined to associate the lack with weaklings and civilians: there are certain kinds of Sky that don't feel the need to posture.

Besides, with this he'll definitely be moved out of that hateful house, and if he starts on Gherardino this young, then he'll definitely shape him up into someone that can surpass that lackadaisical adult by fucking _light years._ He can strength Vongola by strengthening the house of their ally, probably better than he could have from inside that house, anyway.

It's not like despite his reluctance otherwise, Gherardino _doesn't_ want to impress him, after all - rather than taking him to the drawing room or the kitchen as his older self suggested, Gherardino had taken him to the Cavallone Library. Of course there's nothing really interesting here, since anything of a sensitive nature is sure to be kept in the adult Cavallone's office, but the initiative is promising. Besides, it had given Xanxus a chance to ignore the kid safely and regroup and plan.

Too bad his nap was such a failure.

Gherardino had without complaint stuffed himself into the window seat. The book he'd taken with him has been ignored for the sake of sulking about the situation, Xanxus guesses, which is at least better than crying about it. Good thing the brat understands enough to know _that_ at least.

"Hey," Xanxus says sharply. "You. What was your impression of that cow-eyed brat?"

Although Gherardino is making a face just like it: round, wary eyes watching from the defensive ball he's curled himself into. That's shitty weakling posture, which is annoying, and Xanxus isn't really sure what that's all about; sure, House Cavallone is weak, and they're just peons, but they're _Vongola's_ peons. As someone of the Vongola household, that means that Xanxus doesn't let any shitty outsiders interfere with them.

And it's not like any of the usual signs of an adult taking out their resentment on someone weaker are present.

"Um," Gherardino says, "the… the civilian, you mean?"

"Who else," he snaps. That Flame-rot shithead is more or less a non-issue as long as he keeps his fucking distance. Even after six months of forced inactivity having laid waste to his body, and missing half his Flames, Xanxus can handle that brat. He would have thought to handle the other, except-

"He's-" Gherardino says hesitantly, screwing up his face a bit. He lacks confidence, obviously - conviction, maybe. Xanxus has always had more than enough conviction - so much he'd been able to manifest his Flames on his own while on the streets with barely any training. He'd had to, to survive. Even Latent Skies draw attention whether they like it or not, and for a grubby streetrat like him?

That's fine. Xanxus can beat some conviction into the kid.

"He's okay," Gherardino settles on finally, a bit uncertainly. He glances at Xanxus warily, and then admits: "The older me is a bit scary, you know. I know he doesn't mean to, but… thank you for standing where you did."

Xanxus scoffs, which is the only answer _that_ deserves. Part of the reason why Vongola is The Strongest is because Timoteo has managed to raise all his little Sky Heirs into adulthood under one roof. No other Famiglia can say that. It's a testament to Timoteo's skills and his power that he managed it - as well as to his character… in various ways.

Xanxus remembers clearly what it's like to be the youngest Sky with several seniors present. Even if the strange instincts he's never felt this clearly before _hadn't_ goaded him into the reckless kind of action he'd been sympathizing with that Superbi brat earlier over, he would have stood there.

"But - I don't know. It's not like that with him," he says, frowning down at the book laying abandoned by his feet. "D- … do you think that I could turn out like that? Not…" He swallows. "Not being scary all the time?"

What the hell kind of mafia brat is this kid supposed to be? Xanxus nurses the irritation that flares bright red in the center of his chest for a moment before he considers what Skies he could have had to look up to - which is none. Gherardino is the first Sky of the Cavallone Famiglia. His own useless father isn't even Active - and even if he were, he's not a Sky. It was because he's the first that Xanxus and Frederico had even visited with the Cavallone back then - the possible birth of a new Sky Dynasty isn't something to scoff at or ignore.

Xanxus had been less than impressed with the ten year old. He's a bit more worldly now that he's been to school and had to deal with newly emerged Skies from other Famiglias.

Still: "Weakness is a death sentence, and most of the guys you'll be dealing with as Cavallone Decimo will take it that way."

Gherardino wilts, looking miserable, but - well, life isn't fucking fair, now is it? He'll have to prove himself to have power enough to crush his enemies before he weakens his own position and Vongola's by association just to suit his personal preferences.

As for that civilian Sky not being scary, on one level Xanxus wants to laugh. _Of course_ that trash isn't scary! What would he need scariness for? He's too well fed, too well conditioned despite the signs of his recent convalescence for him to have been living a dangerous lifestyle. Mafia brats are all a bit rangy between self-indulgent meals and defying death and binging on vices.

But even if his Sway is almost _nothing,_ the bare minimum of Latent levels of Sky Attraction… Xanxus recognizes it. It's that same call to war that dragged him up from the dreaming. How someone could have compelled him like that only to show up later with barely no Sway to speak of…

Xanxus clicks his tongue, sitting up from the sprawl he'd still been doing over the arm of the chair and shooting a venomous glare toward the library door just in time for it to pop open. Son of a bitch. Hadn't anyone _taught_ that jackass - no, of course not, he thinks with a spark of venomous, throbbing fury. It's obvious no one had.

He wishes he hadn't dropped the book on the floor if only to hurl it at the two cow-eyed idiots who are entering the library right now.

Honestly, they're the most unsettling part of this whole misadventure. Gherardino and his older self are separated by more than ten years of age - they're both Skies, and it's easy for Xanxus to see where the thirteen years old boy he's bonded to could not only become but _surpass_ the man who has taken them in as a favor to that 'Verde' person. But those two idiots? It almost feels like some kind of twisted Mist mirage.

That Flame-rot idiot comes in with a purpose, a full fledged mafia brat raised on presentation and expectation, posturing confidently despite having the same kind of putrid Will expected of a month-old corpse. The shorter, paler of the pair slinks in after him with watchful eyes, wearing the same clothing but in sloppy disarray, trying to take up as little space with his body as he does with his Sway like he's sorry he even exists.

"It's bad," the Flame-rot bastard says with the usual lack of decorum he's shown all this time - _やばい_ _!_ \- before defaulting back to Italian: "Poison Scorpion Bianchi showed up!"

Xanxus stares at him blankly. The who of the what to the whom? The Bianchi part is almost fine - Xanxus _has_ heard of some upstart family, since they've made it past their Primo generation and the Secundo of the name has taken over, but this business about some 'poison scorpion?' That bastard obviously thinks that it means something, but as an important Vongola figure, Xanxus has all the named assassins, hitmen, and notably Famiglia members memorized and there's no such title.

"Who?" Gherardino asks warily.

The Sun idiot makes a face like he's run directly into a glass wall.

"Um," the second cow-eyed idiot says - no, although it's true that he has cow-eyes, he's way too relaxed in a dangerous situation like this. Unlike the other one, he doesn't really meet anyone's eyes directly and his posture is too loose: like Timoteo's Guardians when they take notice of him. "It seems as though Cavallone Dino has a dangerous family member," he says mildly. "She showed up and immediately everyone fell in line and went along with this Bianchi Isabella."

Xanxus' head aches a bit. He's always been incredibly apt at languages, but the way that this idiot talks spins his head in a circle. It's not the book-formal manner that his tutor had taught him in, nor is it the rough manner used among the loud men that Timoteo does business with. Despite favoring the rough manner since its dynamic nature appealed, he's fluent in both dialects.

Every time the shorter cow-eyed idiot opens his mouth, it sounds less like a dialect and more like he's speaking in code.

"Hey, speak plainly for those of us who weren't there," Xanxus demands.

"Ah," the Flame-rot idiot says, never resembling a cow more as he blinks dumbly. "No - with Dino at that age - and Bianchi's even younger…" Somehow this revelation seems to crush him.

Xanxus really is furious that he'd discarded the book earlier. " _I said speak clearly._ "

All that does is earn the Flame-rot idiot's ire, judging by the resentful look cut in his direction. It seems like the shithead knows him from his own world, and although Xanxus is accustomed to being treated in a variety of unfair ways due to circumstances beyond his control. It can't be helped if Xanxus is despised for the smear he is on the beloved Timoteo's name, but this bastard is holding him responsible for the behaviors of someone with their own reasons for however they're acting.

"Dino has a jealous Storm Guardian," the Flame-rot idiot says flatly, "who'll probably be _mad_ when her cute young Sky has one different from her."

The civilian, who probably got about half of that given that his double was at least smart enough to use Italian terminology - or more likely just doesn't know the appropriate terms they use in Japan - adds: "her witchcraft seems to be something scary that'll poison food."

Xanxus is so distracted for a moment over the ridiculousness of that statement - not only the circumstances, although he understands how it came about, but the causal and factual way it's said - that he almost misses the way that the cow-eyed bastard looks to the lot of them, hiding his darting gaze behind a guileless-seeming blink and a natural, minor shift of his head. The hair at the back of Xanxus' neck goes on end: he's seen that kind of behavior before. He _thought_ it before, that this bastard resembles that CEDEF blockhead an unhealthy amount.

The Flame-rot jackass cringes, his shoulders hunching guiltily. " _Nayo,_ " he says.

"Ah - sorry," he says, lifting his hands to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt in an anxious manner - that's no put on, though, and he does sound like he's apologetic for having said it that way, giving the other an uneasy, twitching smile. "But I didn't know how else to put it in this kind of dangerous situation, since just for being Cavallone Dino's wards, we'll attract Bianchi Isabella's ire. She gave us the kind of look you'd give furniture that's only good for being burned."

This guy is an anathema to everything Xanxus has been taught, he thinks, staring in a manner he's sure makes _himself_ look like a cow-eyed idiot. A Sky with no pride or ego to speak of? How the fuck is that supposed to work anyway? Well, he should figure it out pretty quick, since it seems like Gherardino is similar that way, but that's likely more due to a lack of experience than whatever dysfunction _that_ thing has.

Regardless, Xanxus… in his shape, he can handle some Flame-rot bastard on his own, but against an assassin good enough for a _title,_ with an unknown skill set who is likely older than even these two given the Cavallone's age, and therefore better reach and stamina on top of being an established Guardian?

It's not as though Gherardino is in any shape to give him support, which doesn't even take into consideration what Xanxus' irrational instincts have to say about having such a vulnerable Sky and no one else to guard them while he deals with the threat.

"So that's it," he says sharply. "You're just here to deliver some kind of warning? For what?"

The shrimpier of the two looks somewhat taken aback, blinking gormlessly, but the Flame-rot idiot scowls. "As if I'd let Dino go into a situation like that without warning," he says sharply. Xanxus had already figured that he was more or less part of the Cavallone Famiglia, but - it's a bit amusing that a mafia brat like him has been allowing whether he _likes_ someone or not to affect his behavior.

"In this situation," Xanxus says sharply, "no one here is the House you've allied with, so it doesn't matter."

"As if I care about that!" he barks back, clearly frustrated and infuriated - he's going to end up taking another step forward, and then Xanxus is going to break his face, or set him on fire and finish off whatever his Will started when it began to _rot._

"Um," the other cuts in. That must be his favorite word, because otherwise he can just turn any word he wants into a blade with edges sharp enough to cut tension. The shrimp is still avoiding people's gazes and clutching at the folds in his shirt, which is _weakness,_ but… there are edges of a frown that is strangely unsettling despite it being the same expression on that Flame-rot idiot's face.

The idiot wavers for a moment before he's helplessly pulled back in, reorienting on the Sky he's decided to follow, which is - but it allows Xanxus to feel a fraction of a second further from murder than before. The shrimp glances in their direction - no, glances at _Gherardino_ playing 'child to be overlooked' in the window, and then looks down to Xanxus sprawled over the library chair between the doorway and the window and studies him a second.

"Isn't it specifically because we're in this situation that we should ally with one another?" he asks, although it's not a really a question. "For now, we should be united in our goal to get back to our homes safely. Even if Cavallone Dino seems willing to house us, he's just one person, and those people who did this to us in the first place…"

At the reminder, the shrimp's attention seems to waver itself, his gaze going distant and blank. It's not the same as it had when he'd pulled all those assumptions and accusations out of thin air like that asshole Head of the CEDEF, but it's not entirely unlike it, either. Looking back at him, the Flame-rot jackass frowns worriedly. He seems to read something into the lapse that troubles him - maybe something that came up when they looked in on the other two - before he steels himself.

It's a bit useful to know that this rotting bit of trash seems to be more focused on his carnival mirror than Gherardino, though Xanxus isn't really sure what the fuck is going on there. It's amazing that the shrimpier of the two could even tolerate having something like _that_ around him, nevermind _touching him willinging._ For quite a while at that - he remembers clearly that one being pale and panicked and _vulnerable_ and the way he clung to that Flame-rot shithead's hands without flinching.

It's true that Xanxus has noticed repeatedly that it's rare the Sky that has his own level of sensitivity, but the idea that the shrimp has no clue about it…

"Guardian or not," the Flame-rot trash says with a flash of resolve, "Poison Scorpion Bianchi is an opponent none of us can face alone. I don't see that Dino is really going to be able to reign her in - ah, no offense." He glances past Xanxus a bit anxiously and Xanxus snarls before he can help it. The trash scowls at him, but rather than personal offense: this is a look of someone facing a serious threat and not impressed by someone trying to sidetrack the strategy meeting.

The shrimpy one twitches vaguely and clues back in, glancing between the two of them. "Bianchi Isabella doesn't seem like a bad person," he says, frowning thoughtfully at Xanxus' shoe. "As long as we respect the rules of the house, and more importantly: her rules of etiquette - we can probably get along."

"Haa - 'getting along…' That's fine for someone with your-" the trash's vocabulary fails him for a moment, subbing in ' _carisma_ ' temporarily - which is a handy way of saying 'Sky Attraction' isn't it? - before settling on translating his meaning into: " _everything._ But I don't think normal people can get along with someone like her, so it's hopeless for us."

_His 'everything,'_ is it? As disgusting as that is, it's almost worth having to hear it to for the skeptical expression it puts in the shrimpy bastard's face before he seems to take the rest under advisement. "I see," he says, suddenly turning a bit business-like, straightening up. "In that case, it's fine to leave Bianchi-san to me. I'll manage our business as far as that goes."

"You'll _what?!_ "

That Poison Scorpion has to be interesting in order to get this kind of reaction out of that Flame-rot bastard, but that only makes the shrimpy bastard's reaction even more noticeably ludacris. What the fuck is a civilian like him promising against a trained hitman or assassin?

"I've already risen above the level of unwanted furniture to be burned for fun," that shrimpy bastard says, as if it's the most rational thing in the world, casting carnival mirror image of his a patient look. "It's obvious that I should be the one to handle our matters with her."

As informative as all this is - "Aren't you reaching past your means," Xanxus demands impatiently. "Just because you made some shitty agreement with a guy as soft in the head as he is the heart for giving in to a pair of puppy eyes doesn't mean you can handle someone that makes _this_ scum react that way."

"What's a person who hasn't even met Bianchi-san saying?" he inquires mildly. "I think everyone is more or less dangerous if they feel threatened, in various ways… but I don't think she's the type that attacks indiscriminately - especially since she wants to be kind to Cavallone Dino's actual ward: Reborn-kun. Though, even if she understands the situation regarding the 'other worlds,' I think showing her the younger Dino, or yourself, will only make her irritated, so - after that, the only one would can do anything is me, right?"

Well, fuck. Regardless of his dumpy appearance and shadey behaviors and civilian status, this really is a Sky, after all. It's not even poorly reasoned - if this Nayo scum were a Famiglia Heir, the situation would be complicated due to tradition and protocol: there's no way an active Sky would be allowed to face a prospective ally or enemy's Guardians. But since he's some kind of loose end? It's working in their favor.

None of this logic seems to reach the rotting trash standing next to him, though. "Even if you reason it like that, someone like her is dangerous, Nayo," he complains anxiously, which fishes a distracted look of confusion out of Nayo.

"Wh-... why would you do that?" Gherardino asks fretfully, fitting the foreign syllables carefully through his mouth - well, he's young. No one should expect him to be too fluent in _Japanese,_ yet. Cavallone does most of its business in Europe or with English speakers. "If she's dangerous…"

That shrimp seems troubled in general to be facing so much opposition, like he's accustomed to people going along with whatever he suggests. _Welcome to the fucking Mafia, shrimp;_ they're not easily lead civilians. "Isn't it because she's dangerous that the situation has to be addressed?" he says fretfully, and aha: he's becoming concerned there's something he's not seeing, when it's just his faulty understanding of the food chain. "Avoiding something dangerous doesn't fix it, you know. It's still around to cause a problem later, so before the danger increases, we should take steps to mitigate it, don't you think? Regardless of whether I like it or not, I'm the best fit, so I'll deal with it. I'm not sure I could be expected to live with myself if I left the job to someone less suited."

"In what way are you the best fit?!"

It suits Xanxus for those two to be having a disagreement at the moment, regardless of how irritating the rotten trash's voice is. It's also a bit satisfying to discover that even that shrimpy idiot has his own limits despite allowing that filth to touch him. That rotten trash is so protected that he can't see the small expressions of frustration and annoyance that Nayo is making, and since the shrimp is even keeping his Sway to himself, it's not possible for him to notice it that way. At this rate, he'll drive the shrimp away without even realizing that he's at fault for it.

"Well, far be it from us to stop you if you're so eager to throw yourself into danger," he says darkly, bringing the commotion to a stop; the Flame-rot bastard tsks in a perfect snit, but the other looks a little relieved. "Do whatever you like."

"I will, but," the shrimpy brat says restlessly, dropping his gaze to the point that the 'cow' part is particularly obvious. Fucking eyelashes. "I'm really not the nice kind of person who does things out of the goodness of my heart." His mouth twitches into a thin parody of a smile. "Confusing the situation and distracting dangerous people is fine, but - I can't be expected to do all the work myself, you know?"

_What the fuck kind of Vongola-position usurping_ \- and _of course_ that Flame-rot idiot is giving him some kind of horrifyingly cow-eyed gaze over it. No matter how dumb and self-defeating he is, he's mafia enough to appreciate the efforts of this fucktard civilian. If Xanxus was at full power, he probably would have blasted them out of here long before this, but he _definitely_ would have at this point. Disgusting.

"So this is the influence that you intend to use in bargaining with us?" Xanxus observes flatly.

"Well," the shrimpy shithead says, and then the parody he put on earlier deepens pleasantly, brown eyes glimmering faintly at Xanxus from under his lashes. He's still exactly as sloppy looking as he was three seconds earlier, but the harsh edges of uncertainty have smoothed, slotting into place like the handle of a butterfly knife to give the blade support for slicing into flesh and ripping through something vital. "It's not like you're a nice person, either, right?"

Shit. What the _fuck?_

"Cavallone Dino is a good person, but he has his own household to think of which will come first," Nayo says reasonably, without grudge: _of course and naturally his house comes first, that's just how it is._ "And besides, he's an adult who is set in his ways already. That's why I think those of us who have been misplaced should rely mostly on each other. If we don't bind together, it would be a simple matter to separate us one by one and crush us utterly. Under the right leadership, even small fry can become something worth respecting."

Incredulous of what is being said and unsettled by the _manner,_ the thought of holding back the harsh, jagged laugh that barks out never even crosses his mind. "And you think _you're_ the right leadership? With everything you don't know?" Xanxus demands. " _Don't fuck with me._ "

It's a simple knee-jerk response to blast them back through the door for an insult of this level, but the Will that manifests isn't his particularly hot Sky flames but the blistering Sway of a raging Storm. It immediately roils with his realization of it, becoming sharper and more devouring - a weapon, rather than a shield - something that _destroys_ rather than _unites._

Already that putrid trash has shoved the shrimpy Sky back, shielding him with his own body - and just his own body; one arm up to protect his eyes even as he grimaces and cringes, teeth bared as his skin reddens and cloth begins to fray, refusing to budge.

"Xanxus!" Gherardino squawks behind him.

"Fuck off!" he snaps, already having reined it in - too late to avoid doing harm, but quickly enough that the trash won't even blister over it. If his Flames weren't rotting, he would have been able to use then to protect himself, or even fix the damage. As it is?

The trash doesn't even touch his own wounds to take their measure as Xanxus swings to his feet, in no mood to be lounging around that way anymore - not half because of the completely unperturbed expression of that Sky the trash is shielding behind his own body, eyes hooded and not in the least shocked. Xanxus can't stop the twitch he makes when he hears Gherardino's feet land in the floor, baring his teeth at that rotten trash as his younger Sky moves to stand at his side.

"Are you alright?" Gherardino asks - in Italian, so it's clear who he's asking.

The trash doesn't look away from Xanxus, but he answers gently enough: "I'm fine." Then again, in Japanese for the sake of that Sky: "I'm fine."

"Thank goodness," that shrimp says dryly, also not looking away from Xanxus; from the corner of his eyes, Xanxus can see amber glittering in the dark brown. "Would you rather I put that kid beside you in charge? Xanxus of Vongola."

He almost wants to say 'yes' out of spite, since he's just magnificently made the point that he himself isn't capable of leadership - not because of what his Flames are now, but because they aren't something to carelessly fool around with anymore. But even with Xanxus backing him, or using him as a figurehead, putting Gherardino in charge will only expose him more to that rotten trash.

And unfortunately, Xanxus can see the sense of everything that Nayo has said. He's laid out his points clearly and without passion. It's not inspiring leadership, that's for damn sure - Xanxus can't even be relieved to fall under it since this uneducated-

Well. That's a thought.

"Gherardino," Xanxus says sharply, folding his arms across his chest and glowering at that rotten trash. Their faces are particularly annoying - round but fine-boned with that eastern slant to those dumb cow-lashed eyes. "What do you say."

"Me?" he squeaks. "You can't leave a decision like this to me!"

He can and he will. If Gherardino doesn't assert himself as quickly as possible, this Guardianship could easily become skewed. Xanxus doesn't have the natural instincts to submit that a true Guardian would have, and if he fucks this first bond up, Gherardino might never form another. Then it'll _always_ just be Xanxus standing between the world and a then-crippled Sky, never having any support or backup. Gherardino will just have to keep making shitty decisions on everyone's behalf whether he likes it or not, and Xanxus will just have to make sure they survive long enough for the experience to teach him something.

At least some of this must be obvious to him since he wavers in the expectant silence. "I - I guess for now, it's okay," he says. "What kind of things did you want in return?"

Xanxus doesn't look away from that rotten trash, so he doesn't get the full effect of that shrimpy bastard easing up alongside the trash to smile at his Sky - but he sees enough to know a destructive weapon when he catches a glimpse of it.

_Weakness,_ a part of him keeps trying to say. Hell, every Sky in Italia will act the same way - in the entire world, probably. This shrimpy brat will constantly be fighting wars over his twisted methods of coming at things sideways and never baring his fangs or his claws.

"It's not much," he says. "If you'll be willing to look out for the others a bit, and without putting yourself in danger, help them out - that would be enough."

That's more or less a full fledged binding alliance among the Mafia - and that rotten trash knows it, and grimaces unhappily, glowering at Xanxus. Well, fuck him, too: Xanxus doesn't want to watch his back either, but what choice is there? This is their best bet, and while Xanxus would prefer not to bind himself so tightly to a group that'll only last until they get sent back… if they don't get sent back at all, then they'll need the familiarity and history of this alliance to continue protecting themselves.

"And you'll do the same for us?" Gherardino presses. "Distracting Isabella will count as part of that?"

"I could hardly be said to looking out for you otherwise, right?"

'Civilian' his mother's ass, Xanxus thinks darkly while overseeing the whole thing. While that rotting trash keeps being loud and noisy and butting in and being completely _useless,_ that asshole Sky of his wibbles his lip and bats his fucking coweyes and before he's even been awake for twelve fucking hours he's already formed an agreement with two separate families. Oh, technically they're the same person, but functionally their needs and resources are completely different - what they can pay into an alliance, and what they need out of it; and even though the agreement is going through Gherardino: Xanxus knows he's also a big part of it.

It's kind of fucked that he has to buy protection for that kid with his own skills and actions. Xanxus has always thought that _he'd_ be putting together a team and having Vongola at his back until they were strong enough to stand on their own and return that investment. Being stranded without Vongola, and also in a tenuous situation like this-

Well, honestly speaking: Xanxus really isn't sure they can actually trust that shrimpy little shit. He's not _Mafia,_ nor is he yakuza - but he's _something,_ that's for damned sure. Regardless, Gherardino isn't going to be prepared to go against someone as two-faced as this for _years_ \- Xanxus might. He's good at sniffing out this kind of sneaky, backhanded bullshit even if he has no skill for it himself - but only on his own. He can't cover both himself and an otherwise unprotected young Sky.

It puts him in the worst fucking mood, but: Nayo's moods can be a whole lot more dangerous. He'd love to to hear what little shit thinks he got out of that agreement with Dino that was meant to pacify him. The older Gherardino said some bull about him not being level headed, but - he hadn't been at ground zero for that little meltdown, either.

That irresistible call to war had dragged Xanxus from the depths of awful memories - not the worst, most desperate ones, but living in the streets or in a brothel isn't great - and Xanxus had broken his way free from the pod, groggy and disoriented, with acid in his heart where once had only burned the hottest, most destructive Flames. He's forced to assume that that fucking trash involved hadn't seen the point of using Gherardino as their battery, since he's not especially strong compared to the other powerhouses they had - the kid had been woken up by the same thing Xanxus had.

By then, both the shrimp and his rotten trash had already left the room, but Xanxus? That's his father's fucking trademark. The control freak and made certain that his children all were well acquainted with it. Timoteo's iron willed control over his own Will - to the point of _freezing a thing that burns_ \- is plenty impressive, but if that shrimpy shit wasn't at least a little in control of his own temper tantrum… rather than a thin sheet of ice along the floor to the doorway, and the doorway itself being iced over: that entire room should have been _filled_ with an uncontrolled burst of ice feet deep.

For someone as dangerous as that shrimp, trusting him is impossible; it's just Xanxus' typical shit luck that he's in such a weak position that he's forced to avoiding presenting himself as opposition for the sake of the person depending on him.

"Was that really the right thing to do?" Gherardino wonders anxiously after that shrimp bows out and drags his trash with him.

"Who the fuck can tell with someone like that," Xanxus says, flat and unhappy. "We'll find out one way or another."

He'd definitely reminded Xanxus of that CEDEF Head too much. Come to think of it - isn't that bastard a half-blood himself? He thinks he remembers those yakuza shitheads saying something about it and giving the Head shifty looks. It doesn't really matter with them all stranded in another world, but - it's something to think about.

For all that he's in another world, there are just enough similarities here that Xanxus feels all of nine and dragged off the streets and into the Vongola House all over again.

-0-

* * *

-0-

"Stop fidgeting," Tsunayoshi sighs, focusing on where he's trying to apply the burn ointment that Zunetto found to his face. All of Zunetto's sputtering protests of being able to do it himself had been casually ignored; he lost that kind of right the moment he'd decided to try protecting Tsunayoshi with his own body.

And for what, really? Xanxus' strange witchcraft isn't nearly as bad as Ikumi's - it lacks the vitriol of her resolve, although apparently that doesn't have anything to do with the color of it. Ikumi's had always been strangely dark for all it's ferocious edge, and Xanxus' resolve is a few shades brighter and warmer. All it does is continue to remind him of Fon and that family member of his with his beautiful resolve. A dazzling shade like that was definitely something to take comfort in - for all that Tsunayoshi sheepishly remembers that he'd thought to face and kill him if necessary.

It's a good thing that family member had taken Kyoya's side against the Hibari clan, or otherwise Tsunayoshi wouldn't be allow himself to remember it so wistfully.

"It's weird," Zunetto complains, wringing his hands and looking fixedly at the ceiling even as he continues to shift uneasily on the edge of Tsunayoshi's bed - or at least the one he'll be using while here at Cavallone Dino's house. "I really can do it myself, you know?"

He's one to speak. Thanks to Tsunayoshi's own experiences with Ikumi, he can probably handle Xanxus' resolve just fine himself. Or apparently 'witchcraft' - but exploring that will have to come later.

"Well, I'm done with your face anyway," Tsunayoshi says. He hasn't covered up all the red skin, but considering that Zunetto has flushed in discomfort or embarrassment all the way up to his brows and ears which Tsunayoshi _knows_ had been shielded, he's pretty sure he's managed regardless. He reaches down to take Zunetto's arm instead, even if it makes the guy jump. The threads around his collar had been a bit damaged, but the sleeve of his shirt - even rolled up a bit the way he had to keep his forearms clear - had been a bit closer to Xanxus. And even that bit closer had been enough that the fabric is more obviously damaged.

Zunetto fidgets under the scrutiny. Even without looking up at his face, Tsunayoshi can tell by his expression that he feels sick.

That has nothing to do with Tsunayoshi though. It's his own decisions that have put him in that tough spot, so he'll have to decide his way out. Zunetto is the one that decided being in the dark is better for Tsunayoshi, as if anything good has ever come of that, regardless of what Xanxus just did which is inexplicable by normal means - except, well, Tsunayoshi has seen it plenty before. It's never actually _hurt_ anyone before, though, which Tsunayoshi finds himself a bit irritable about.

He wonders if Zunetto is misunderstanding some sign of that, but - well. That's neither here nor there.

Tsunayoshi dips his fingers into the ointment tub and begins applying it to the skin of Zunetto's forearm, which is in worse shape than the skin of his jaw and throat - the same as the fabric. Here, threads have come loose, as if something harsh had worn against it and cut them a bit. The skin itself isn't just reddened, but dry and cracked even if it's not bleeding or anything.

Ever since Haru decided to face the Disciplinary Committee with him as a kid, it's always been like this - people who recklessly throw themselves into danger alongside or for Tsunayoshi's sake and have no one preferable to care for them: it becomes Tsunayoshi's responsibility to see that they're bandaged up. Since it's just Tsunayoshi and Zunetto in this case, that much is obvious, right?

If he'd had any delusions of Zunetto being any happier to have his arm seen to or that his discomfort stemmed from having someone in his face, they're quickly disproven. Tsunayoshi ignores it in favor of the injuries, and the - hmm. Those are some interesting calluses on his hands, and the muscles and the way the tendons of his wrists stood out - he's seen them before.

Less on Takeshi. More on old man Yamamoto. Tsunayoshi had stuck with it only long enough to satisfy old man Yamamoto and never bothered developing the calluses himself.

"You know," he says, his fingers growing still, "we're a lot more alike than I thought."

"What?" Zunetto says, startled into looking up and actually meeting his gaze. He still leaves himself wide open. It's not exactly an odd habit on someone who is busy rejecting everything he's been forced to become, Tsunayoshi thinks: carelessly inviting the strike that will put an end to it.

It wouldn't even be hard: it's the kind of thing that could happen on accident. Someone must have been protecting him up until now.

"Xanxus and I, I mean," he says, letting go of Zunetto's arm and wiping his fingers off on a bit of gauze. Zunetto sputters incredulously. "Even if he hates it, he's capable of doing a lot of things for the sake of protecting the people at his side. I wonder if it'll drive him into a corner?"

Zunetto gives him something of a complicated look. "I don't know that I see that," he says grudgingly, as if he refuses to see it but is reluctant to correct anything Tsunayoshi has said. "You're one to talk though - you'll put yourself in a corner this way. What are you going to do if the elder Dino and the younger come to be at odds? Did you even consider that before trying to make an alliance?" Zunetto seems particularly aggrieved by this, his hands clenching anxiously and his entire brow furrowing.

"I didn't plan to," Tsunayoshi says reproachfully. "But Xanxus showed a bit of his true face, you know? I got curious." And he'd already more or less planned to interfere regarding Bianchi regardless. What else should he do when people cling to him? Ahh. It's a weakness of his.

Zunetto groans, something like despair as he slumps in on himself with a pitiful expression. "Please don't put yourself in a bad position just because you're curious," he says, skipping anger and denial for once and going straight to bargaining or possibly depression. 

If it's never worked for Tsunayoshi, he's not going to allow it to work for Zunetto, frankly; though he reaches a hand out to pat him on the head. "There, there," he says tolerantly, a bit amused. He's no Takeshi, so he can't exactly soothe him, but he can do this much - and suddenly sees the appeal of it now: Tsunayoshi had never really given a lot of thought to the texture of his own hair, but it's a bit soft despite the rebellious cowlicks.

The weird way Zunetto stiffens under his hand, though - it's as if no one has shown him kindness in a long while. _Ahh._ Now really, what is Tsunayoshi supposed to do with someone dangerous who instinctively puts their body between Tsunayoshi and danger, who hasn't been given a kind word or patted on the head and told good job despite being protected?

He's a little irritated, to be honest. What has Zunetto done to not deserve being treated well, exactly? Please point out precisely what it was.

But there's not really anyone that Tsunayoshi can go to about this, since Zunetto is alone here from his world - he can't get to those people and demand to know exactly what they're thinking and for what reason it's been allowed to come to this. But… for someone who'll protect him without a second thought to their own health: he'll certainly do his best as long as he's allowed.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Dino:** *sheds a tear* Xanxus is being so brave rn  
>  **Xanxus, elsewhere:** what fucking ever, at least this shit will get me out of that fucking house  
> \--  
>  **Zunetto:** could you! stop! allying with everyone in sight?!  
>  **Nayo:** I don't think you'd like my other choice
> 
> * Nayo keeps trying to make friends the Namimori way but it's not working :'(
> 
> * Xanxus is pretty good at pretending to be an abrasive dick... because he is an abrasive dick, but he's also an incredibly keen judge of character. Both Xanxus and Nayo are readjusting their assumptions so far. 
> 
> * Nayo picked up on Zunetto's Flame Rejection back at the facility - it just has nothing to do with him. He has the diamond-clad certainty of an absolute fucking lunatic, so the normal dangers involved with people like Zunetto and Byakuran aren't a problem. 
> 
> * In StormVerse, Bianchi would be about 8, so of course no one has heard of her yet. Squalo and Dino are both 13, so please entertain yourself with TinyBrat!Squalo pitching a fit. It's likely it'll be several years before Squalo resigns himself to being Dino's Guardian (if he ever does). Until then, he'll play Shioya to Xanxus' Naoko :V
> 
> * Although both Dino and Canon!Tsuna reject their boss positions, I think Dino's reasons were probably a lot different than Tsuna's (and I don't think Tsuna's are really all that simple). In StormVerse, it's because it's fucking scary to be the first Sky of his line. In ChromaVerse, Dino does truly despise what the Mafia does. I wonder what the world where Dino actually likes the Mafia looks like.
> 
> * Tsunayoshi is the literal definition of 'bottling up your emotions into a molotov cocktail.' Xanxus at least vents sometimes - Tsunayoshi just keeps finding more things to piss him off and represses it until he can't lmao.
> 
> * Takeshi has sword calluses which are different from the knife handle calluses his dad has from mostly running the shop and only picking up a sword to teach his kid. Tsunayoshi did some knifework study under Tsuyoshi because he was super pissed by Tsunayoshi's handling of them the one time a 'situation' arose.


End file.
